In the Aftermath
by Smokey-Wisp
Summary: Victory over Zarkon takes a bittersweet turn when Shiro vanishes. Keith struggles to accept his new role as leader while the Paladins pursue a lead that may be a trap. Confessions, revelations, machinations, mercenaries, and math in my own version of season 3.
1. Chapter 1 - Gone

**In the Aftermath**

 **By Kim Smuga-Otto**

 _Since waiting six months to find out what the heck happens in season 3 (Shiro's disappearance, a new Paladin, Lotar's introduction, Hagger's ancestry, and the source of Keith's Galra genes) I thought writing my version would help satiate some of the hunger for the next series. This is "Episode 1" with multiple chapters. I'm trying to keep to the spirit of the series – an all ages, fast-paced mix of action and humor – with a bit of fanfiction silliness occasionally making its way in._

 _This story uses elements introduced in my other fanfics "Red Cub" and "Journey" but they aren't required to understand what's going on._

 _3/4/17 - I've changed the name of my story from "Aftermath" to "in the Aftermath" because there is already an actively updating story by that name (also set directly after season 2) Sorry for the confusion, this will teach me to do a title search first._

 **Chapter 1 – Gone**

The cockpit was empty.

They all piled in, looking through the space as if expecting Shiro to just be tucked under a console. It made no sense.

Surreal, thought Lance, that was the word. He was standing in the Black Lion and Shiro was gone, but part of his mind was still high on endorphins from kicking Zarkon's butt, dealing the death blow to a 10,000-year-old evil empire and making it out by the skin of their teeth, once again. In that part of his brain, Shiro could be injured, sure, but he couldn't be … gone. Lance stood there, desperate for someone to say something that would fix it and make everything all right again. The silence was deafening.

Hunk spoke first, his voice uncertain, "Pidge, when you guys retrieved the Black Lion, did you look around to make sure Shiro wasn't, umm, floating around in space or something?"

"What, you think the Black Lion spat him out?" Pidge snapped back. Then, a little less certainly, she asked Lance, "There aren't any holes on your side, are there?"

"Not even a scratch." He reached out and touched the Bayard, inserted in its active position. He could swear the metal handle still felt warm.

"Allura?" Pidge turned to the princess, but she simply shook her head. Her eyes had an unfocused look. The uncomfortable silence fell again, and Lance wondered if everyone, just like him, was caught up in that weird in-between space.

"Ayeee!" It was Slav, looking up at them, his serpentine body forming a question mark, "I was afraid this would happen."

"What?" asked Lance, "you're saying you knew Shiro would disappear?"

"I said, afraid," replied Slav, speaking slowly as if to deaf grandmother, "It was one of a multitude of things that kept me up last night." He started counting on his many fingers, "I was afraid that the gravity well would fold the teladev like a piece of origami. Afraid the Blade of Marmora was an elaborate covert operation to trap us. Afraid the Black Lion would return to Zarkon. Afraid the Galra would have had the sense to install a backup power generator. Afraid the Orikavi had contracted out to the lowest bidder. Afraid the Paladins would get into an argument and be unable to form Voltron. Afraid we'd arrive at the chosen star system to find it overrun by star Gerrybills. Afraid I'd wake up dead – that's a recurring one. And those were only the probabilities that were greater than 1 percent."

"So you're saying there was a greater than 1 percent chance of one of us disappearing from our cockpits?" asked Pidge. She looked to Lance like she was running a calculation in her head.

"No," Slav always looked offended when people didn't understand what he was saying, or maybe that was just the way his beak was shaped, "the chances of that were 0.027 percent! And that makes it all the worse, it's those minuscule probabilities you really need to worry about. There are so many things that are as good as theoretically impossible that it increases your chances that at least one of them will happen."

"But how could Shiro have simply vanished from inside?" asked Allura, "could it have been the witch Haggar's magic?"

Slav shrugged two sets of shoulders, "Or the lions. You realize these are no mere machines. They were crafted by an ancient, and now vanished, race, the Seltevians, whose level of technology has never been matched since. In my studies, I would come across references to the lions and puzzled over their rumored abilities and achievements. But in this reality at least, they are even more strange and unexplainable."

"How do we bring him back?" It was the first time Keith had spoken since asking the Black Lion to open the cockpit when they entered.

"Well, I don't know if we even can," stammered Slav as Keith walked down the ramp towards him, "I don't know the probabilities for where he might have gone."

"Then. Go. Figure. It. Out." With each word, Slav kept bending backwards until he resembled one of those hot air stick people outside of car washes. His beak opened and closed, but no sound emerged and his eyes shifted towards Keith's hand, which seemed uncomfortably close to his Bayard.

"This will require quite a bit of math," he said at last, "The kind that's mostly letters and at least eight types of infinities."

"Fine, get to it." Keith's voice was even flatter than usual. Slav nodded, then dashed away.

"OMG," said Pidge, "Shiro would have so loved to see…" her voice trailed off and she glanced furtively at Keith.

He didn't seem to notice. The tension had drained out of him, his normal emo slouch back, and he just looked tired. "Coran," he asked, "if Kolivan gave you the Galra's security codes, could you scan their frequencies to see if there's anything about a captured Paladin?"

"I think we could."

"Then maybe Pidge could help you and the rest –" He stopped himself and turned to Allura, "Princess, we've got to find him. Tell us what to do."

That's odd, thought Lance, Keith holding his tongue considering all the times he gave his unsolicited opinion. Allura seemed taken aback as well, but not in her recent ignore-the-part-Galra-human-in-the-room routine. She gave Keith a glance that Lance would have preferred be shorter, and turned to face them all.

"I think scanning for signals should be a top priority. Not just for Shiro, but also to find out the fate of Zarkon, and the state of the Galra empire. We also need to begin on repairs. Our ship sustained significant damage to its engines, shields, navigation and heaven knows what else, making us extremely vulnerable. But before we disperse …"

She looked around the room, taking them all in. "We need to take a moment to, I won't say to savor, but to acknowledge that we accomplished a great thing today. We succeeded in our mission. Several times Zarkon and Haggar came very close to destroying us, but we pulled together, we supported each other, and together, we were stronger than them. But it wasn't without sacrifice. Shiro is missing and our new allies, Antok and Thrace, died fighting. We all entered the battle willing to lay down our lives, but that won't make the losses of our comrades any easier. We will remember and honor Antok and Thrace. And we will find Shiro and bring him home."

Normally, Lance just regarded the princess as a kickass, space babe extraordinaire. But listening to her now, Lance was convinced she was a goddess. And if that slightly awed look on Keith's face meant he was thinking the same, well, Lance was sure he'd thought it first.

* * *

It was nice having space mice for confidants. They were always there to listen, never interrupted, and could keep a secret. And after the battle, Shiro's disappearance, and the frenzied activity of the past few hours, Allura needed to let her guard down a bit.

"Well," she told them when they were alone again on the bridge, "We defeated Zarkon and probably saved the universe." The mice squeaked and did a happy dance, complete with confetti. "But the black paladin has vanished. He kept us safe and without him, I feel so uncertain."

"Squeak?"

"There are things I've learned about the Galra, about the Alteans, and about myself that are at odds with the truths I've long held dear. I wish Shiro was here so I could talk to him, I know he'd help me make sense of it. Oh, what are we going to do without him?"

"Squeak, squeak."

"Yes, that was Shiro's plan, but I'm not sure how to bring it up with the others. And it still leaves us short one Paladin."

"Squeak, squeeee eek, eek, squeak?"

"I'm honored, what a lovely sentiment."

Behind her, someone loudly cleared their throat. She turned to see Commander Kolivan, looking much the same as when she saw him watching them in the hangar.

"Princess Allura," he gave a small bow, "earlier, I overheard you speaking with the Paladins. I wanted to thank you for your gracious words on behalf of the Blade's fallen members."

"Antok and Thrace gave their life fighting alongside us. They were brave and noble warriors. It was only just that I honor them."

"There are many who have suffered under the Galra who might have chosen to do otherwise."

And I would have been one of them, if we could have defeated Zarkon without you, thought Allura. She still had her reservations about the Blade of Marmora's motives, 10,000 years seemed a very long time for an opposition group to stay secret. But they had proven themselves through their actions and sacrifices. Through her mental connection with the mice she received an image of the Red Paladin, but she ignored it.

"Commander Kolivan, speaking of Galra past actions, could you tell me what happened to my people? Coran and I know the Altean solar system is gone, but we know nothing else."

"I am not a historian, Princess. The destruction of Altea took place long ago. However, I was taught that a device was planted in the Altean sun, causing it to turn supernova and engulf the system. I am sorry."

She had suspected as much, but the image of all beautiful places on her planet and its people being incinerated was painful. But there must be more to the story.

"The Alteans had close diplomatic ties with various races. Could it be possible a small group managed to survive?" The unhooded Haggar and her telltale ears came to Allura's mind. It was possible, if some of her people had survived, that she wouldn't want to know them.

"Many things are possible in the universe. But I have never heard of any remaining Alteans, either as prisoner or rebels. Zarkon keeps a list of enemies, a very long list. But the only Alteans on it are your late father, your second-in-command, and yourself. There is …" Allura waited. Kolivan continued, "This is some information that the Blade recently received. A source has confirmed that Zarkon's son, Prince Lotor is alive."

"What? But how can he be alive, after 10,000 years?"

"That I do not know, Princess. But there was a rumor I heard as a child, more of a legend really, that Zarkon planned to make Prince Lotor the Paladin of the Red Lion. But, unable to find the other lions, he sealed both lion and son away until all the lions were found."

"But …" Allura's mind reeled. Could Lotor have been put into suspended animation as she and Coran had been? And how long had the Galra been in possession of the Red Lion?

"As I said, it was only a legend. Now, Princess, there was another reason I sought you out. It is critical that I take leave of your castle and return to our headquarters. The Blade of Marmora has long planned for Zarkon's defeat, and are prepared to strike while the Empire is in disarray. We must not miss this window of opportunity."

"Of course, you must return then," it made sense, and yet she was uncomfortable with yielding control of the offensive to the Blade. "I thank you and your order again for your help. We stand ready to return the favor."

"We are grateful." Kolivan seemed less than completely genuine, but perhaps she was projecting, "But until you have all five Paladins, perhaps it's best that the power of Voltron stays hidden in the shadows. We will, of course, contact you should we hear anything about your missing Paladin."

Allura, with her diplomatic training, could sense the danger in this, but as Kolivan pointed out, it wouldn't be wise to advertise that they couldn't form Voltron. So she let Kolivan's comments go uncontested. Besides, if his source was correct, she had larger concerns.

After he had left, she turned to the mice, "Could he truly be alive? The chances … but if he is, if Zarkon made him a prince, then what sort of person is he now?"

"Squeak, squeak."

"Yes, you may be right. I shouldn't tell anyone, not yet."

* * *

Coran said he'd be along shortly to go over the ship's various engineering systems, so Hunk was hanging out by his lion, waiting. He could have been off cooking, but that somehow felt too normal. And right now, things weren't normal. Everyone else was off doing serious stuff because down time would mean having to deal with Shiro being gone.

Not that he was dead, but every time Hunk tried to think about the empty cockpit, he felt the same ache as when his Uncle Louis had died from a heart attack.

It had been sudden, as in one hour earlier everyone was organizing for a potluck dinner at his grandmother's house and then all the text messages changed from who was bringing extra foldable tables and how many crock pots there were going to be, to who was driving Aunt Jen to the hospital, who was looking after his Tad and baby Elise, who was going to call Louis's mother in California to tell her son was on a respirator and that they hadn't been able to get his heart to beat for over an hour, who was going to contact the funeral home and set up the Spacebook announcement. Everyone had thrown themselves into helping out, being useful. Because focusing on logistics meant you didn't have to think about never seeing him, never hugging him, never again hearing his corny jokes or bad impersonations.

Hunk could sense the dull pain creeping in, that would grip you hard whenever you stopped doing something useful. As long as he held it off, Shiro wouldn't really be gone. Soon he'd head down to Engineering with Coran, but until then he searched through Yellow's diagnosis logs to confirm she hadn't sustained any critical damage.

"Nothing wrong with a little check-up, right girl?" he asked as his lion powered up, the machine hum sounding a bit like a purr. Pidge had showed him how to plug into the lion's control system with the Altean popup displays, but Hunk liked the lion's control system's retro aesthetic and layout.

He climbed in through her mouth and made himself comfortable in the chair. As he suspected, Yellow hadn't taken much damage. She was the sturdiest of all of them with some sort of extra shielding running through her armor that acted a bit like the castle's barrier system. Whatever it was, it used a good deal of power.

"Good thing you guys don't burn gasoline," he said, "otherwise half the castle would have to be filled with fuel." Coran had said something about the lions pulling quintessence or cosmic energy from the universe itself which wasn't the most technical of explanations, but it seemed to fit the observed facts.

Hunk pulled up a schematic of the energy use during their battle. There were small spikes early on and then a massive surge as they formed Voltron. It crashed down to nothing when they were hit by that black ball of magic. But just before that, there was another massive energy surge, bigger than any he had previously seen.

No, wait. He checked the time stamps. The surge happened just after they were hit. And then it flat-lined. It wasn't so much that the quintessence was ripped out, more like a calculated shutting down of some tap, and then the lion's energy reserves just drained out.

Slav had said the lions were magic. Hunk had always known they were sentient, made from technology even more amazing than what was used in the ship, somehow mentally linked to the Paladins, so them being magical wasn't much of a leap of faith. Hunk replayed the energy sequence and wondered what precisely quintessence was. He should ask Slav about it sometime.

* * *

When he heard Kolivan's request for a launch, Keith had rushed to the hanger. He arrived just as the Galra had completed loading his shuttle. As the last bag was stowed, Kolivan turned to Keith and said simply:

"I am sorry not to have formally said goodbye, but there are urgent matters that I need to attend to. The battle we've won is just the most recent in the war." He was as dismissive as when Keith and Shiro arrived at the Blade's headquarters.

"I need to talk to you," said Keith. He didn't phrase it as a request.

"You wish to find your family," stated Kolivan. Keith almost said yes, but he couldn't think of purple skinned, pupil-less aliens as family. He was torn between his desire to know his past, and his certainty that given a choice between human and Galra, even the members of the Blade of Marmora, he would choose human.

Keith found himself using the words Allura had spoken to him before his mission to shut down the fortress, "The paladins and crew aboard this ship are my family now."

Did Kolivan's emotionless mask slip slightly? "I'm sure Slav will be overjoyed," he deadpanned.

"I want to know how I got this blade," said Keith.

"Each blade is earned upon entrance to the Blade, and no member parts with it until death. The blade is usually cremated with the owner. But in your case, it appears that the blade was passed down as inheritance."

"Then who did it belong to? I want to know if I have relatives amongst the Galra." Keith unsheathed the blade and passed it to Kolivan.

Kolivan barely glanced at it before handing it back. "Our blades bear no identification marks for a reason. It is unlikely that any of my order would be able to recognize it."

"But," Keith pressed on, "the owner of this blade somehow made it to Earth. Does the Blade keep mission records? Perhaps one of your people was sent to Earth, a warrior who could have been my grandfather, or mother-"

"Our society has remained hidden for so long because we don't leave traces to be found," there was a harshness to Kolivan's voice. "Members operate in cells and even if there was information about a mission to your planet, the details of who went and what they did wouldn't be included. Or, the owner might have been embedded within an official military mission. Zarkon never stopped looking for the lions. But given that the Blue lion remained undetected, such a mission must have been unsuccessful." That was a dismissal, an end to the conversation.

Kolivan made to enter his ship, but Keith stepped in front of him. He didn't trust himself to speak, he'd tried that at their base station and it had got him nowhere. The Blade did not volunteer information.

Kolivan may have sensed his determination, or simply have decided that talking would be faster.

"You shouldn't think yourself unique, or even uncommon. As a result of the Galra's conquests and occupations, mix breeds like yourself are found on thousands of worlds. A few half-breeds, those who take strongly after their fathers, have joined the Galra ranks. However, the majority are never acknowledged by their sires; the offspring is rarely a source of pride for either parent's race. I say this to caution you, your Galra heritage will not forge any bonds."

"I have no desire to identify with a race that has committed such atrocities." Keith snarled.

"Still," Kolivan continued as if he hadn't heard, "you are a Paladin of Voltron and your act of bravery, however naïve and foolish I thought it at the time, was critical to the mission's success. For that reason, I will tell you, not what I know, but what I speculate of your ancestry."

"Your ability to interface with Galra technology means you must be no less than one-eighth Galra, and I think it most likely that you are a quarter, or possibly, despite your human phenotype, half, Galra."

"Then, my grandfather, or my mother-"

"Not your mother, it would have to be a male relation. A Galra female would never have been part of such a mission, and even in the unlikely possibility, wouldn't have carried a Blade. Galra women are not warriors, and there has never been one in our order.

Keith though for a moment, in all the Galra ships he had infiltrated, he'd only seen male Galra. The only female had been Haggar.

"Are your women … part of the Komar?" he asked. Kolivan looked like he had swallowed something vile.

"Haggar and her druids are outcasts, only tolerated because of Zarkon's favor. The druids would never be entrusted with a Galra female." Outside of battle, this was as intense as Keith had seen a Galra, "Our women are protected, from the war and from corruption. They reside in separate colonies and the genders do no comingle as yours' and other races' do. In all my years, I have only seen Galra women twice, and then only as part of a formal ceremony."

Kolivan slipped past Keith. Just before the airlock closed, he said, "Should you wish to know more about our culture, I'm sure there are some records in the castle library." Keith needed to step back quickly as the shuttle taxied to the airlock.

He glanced down at his knife. He could just get rid of it. Be done with the Blade and his Galra heritage. Allura and his teammates would understand if he just wanted to go back to being human. But his knife wasn't a connection to the Galra, it was a connection to an individual, his grandfather or great grandfather, and Keith was determined to find out his story.

If only Shiro were here. If only.

The weight of the loss hit him again, just as hard as when they opened the cockpit. Where was Shiro? He wasn't dead, couldn't be dead. But without any clues to what had happened, Keith felt so useless.

He walked through the hangar to where the Black Lion sat, inert. She was still down, either recharging or in some self-repair trance. Her barrier was down at least, meaning she was expecting Shiro or …

"Keith, if something happens to me, I want you to pilot the Black Lion and lead the team." Twice Shiro had spoken those words and twice Keith had refused. Shiro hadn't accepted Keith's answer, and now there was no one to reply to.

Keith looked up at the Black Lion's face. There wasn't any power behind her white eyes, but something about the way the shadows fell gave them a sort of life. Like she was expecting something.

"I'm not piloting you again," he said, "that was just a one-time emergency thing.

"You've flown her?" It was Pidge. She was poking her head around one of the lion's legs. If she'd had her floating monitor things up he would have seen the light.

"Not flown," he and Shiro had purposely kept that out of their report, "just sat in her while she pounced. It was to save Shiro, that's why she let me in."

"If you flew her now, it would be to save Shiro."

Sometimes the best defense was simply not to engage.

"What are you doing here?" Keith asked.

"Waiting for you," she said, "I set an alert for when you entered any of hangars."

"Why?"

"To keep you from doing something rash and stupid, like last time."

"Last time?" was she referring to the time he and Allura ran away?

"At Galaxy Garrison, after the Kerberos mission was lost. I hacked into your records, I know why you got kicked out."


	2. Chapter 2 - Confession

_The events mentioned in this chapter follow an idea about Keith's past presented in my "Red Cub" story. But it should still make sense if you haven't read it._

 **Chapter 2 – Confession**

"At Galaxy Garrison," said Pidge, "after the Kerberos mission was lost. I hacked into your records, I know why you got kicked out."

Keith hung his head and let out one of his trademark emo sighs.

Pidge felt like she was about to jump into an extremely cold pool, one she'd been staring at for some time. Well, time to be brutally honest and see what happened.

"Actually, I should thank you," she said. "If I hadn't found your files, I would never have found out about the Galra."

* * *

It was a starry, starry night. Katie Holt, aka Pidge Gunderson, was a city girl who got more out of satellite imagery rendered on her laptop than those times Dad had dragged her out camping. However, the view of the desert sky over Galaxy Garrison's barracks was impressive.

It was also deserted, the perfect place to get some good hacking done. Katie had discovered the hatch to the roof last week and had been up here, rummaging through the base's not-so-secure server every night since.

It would have been movie-level awesome, had she been able to find anything.

"Arrgg!" she ran her hands through her short hair – still getting used to that. "I thought military intelligence was an oxymoron."

The other great thing about the roof – she could be as loud there as she wanted.

Pidge was the kind of quiet nerd who didn't mingle, a useful cover so that Katie didn't get too close to anyone and let her secret slip. But being tight lipped was sooooo hard. Just this afternoon, Lance had been yammering on about his knowledge of the various manned missions to different planets and it had been excruciating, not being able to correct his mistakes – six and counting when she finally stalked off. So, she had a bunch of pent-up expletives to let out.

Hacking into the garrison's system was easy, delving into directories and cracking files was like taking candy from a sleeping baby, but finding anything interesting in there? good luck. There were cascades of folders with nothing in them and repositories of files with almost identical names and sizes. She bounced back and forth between attributing the apparent lack of any logical organization to a sys-op mastermind or a series of truly incompetent IT contractors.

Maybe the crazy busy schedule they kept the cadets on was depleting her brain cells: 6 AM calisthenics, room cleaning before breakfast, lectures all morning and hands-on labs or simulation training until four, then some outdoor exercise, dinner and completing assignments into the evening.

Some parts, like re-assembling an engine with Hunk, were quite enjoyable. The guy was a surprisingly good mechanic and genuinely sweet. Other parts, pretty much anything related to Lance, were super-painful. Did he ever shut up? Although his imitation of Iverson was spot on hilarious.

"Stop thinking about those guys and start focusing, Katie," she reminded herself.

She scanned through the classified Kerberos files for the nth time. Every technical detail, from the inventory of the wreckage captured by a satellite to the computer simulations, confirmed the official version: The pilot had misjudged the descent, one of the wings had cracked and the shuttle had crashed onto Pluto's surface.

It was the consistency of the evidence that convinced her it was a cover-up job. Nothing in science or engineering is that clear-cut. There's always some data point that doesn't fit. Even in a conspiracy theory. So, what-made up detail had the military intelligence goofed up on?

She turned to the pilot's files. Takahashi Shirogane. He was young – inexperienced according to the official report – clean-cut and extremely good looking in a boy scout/Captain America sort of way. He graduated top of his class, aced his pilot exam and even had a special commendation in his file for volunteer work mentoring at-risk youth. The only smudge in his otherwise squeaky-clean record was a write up in his senior year. He and an underclassman had gotten caught after hours taking the flight simulator for a joy ride. They'd given him a slap on the wrist, apparently, it had been the underclassman's birthday.

Katie pulled up the other boy's records. Odd, he should be in her year, but she'd never seen the shaggy black haired cadet around the garrison. Something about his name sounded familiar. Keith Kogane was almost as impressive as Takahashi. Not as academically outstanding, but his flight instructors may as well all have had school girl crushes on the kid. "Handles the ship like it's hardwired to his brain," wrote one. Another one gushed that he had "never seen someone ace landing the hurricane mod on the first try." And her favorite new bromance line, "watching him in a dogfight gives me the chills."

"So where are you now, Maverick?" she asked the files before her. "Oh, seems like you got kicked out for a disciplinary infraction." Little Icarus flew too close to the sun, most likely. But she couldn't confirm her suspicions, that record was locked down. As in super-locked-down, encrypted, not-even-going-to-reveal-its-actual-location. She was logged in as a sys admin for crying out loud. Then she looked up the file's time stamp, and really did feel a chill. It was created two weeks after Kerberos went dark. Here was her out-of-place detail, her way in past the facade.

Unfortunately, Kogane turned out to be his own collection of dead ends. He hadn't left a forwarding address and wasn't on any social network accounts, nor, with the exception of Shirogane, did he have any friends to tag him in photos. She couldn't even find a high school record.

She hacked into the garrison's admissions records and pulled up his application. His emergency contact was some woman, Kate Sanders.

"Nice name, and she's a … social worker?" So Kogane was a foster kid. No mother listed, and his father's last address was a correctional facility.

There was a Pandora's Box vibe to Kogane's foster care records, so of course Pidge was going to open them.

Here at last was an electronic paper trail: grades, health reports, schedules, behavioral analysis, twice-yearly mental evaluations, progress reports and a fair number of disciplinary write ups – was he a delinquent after all? But no, seems his social worker got an official notice every time Kogane was in the same room as some other kid causing trouble, and his group home had been a happening place.

Lots of fights, cursing out staff, destruction of property and indecent exposure. Kogane had defended himself in fights, but otherwise mostly kept his nose clean. One night saw seven boys run away and Kogane was written up for not informing the staff directly. Another time a kid pulled a cutting knife on the staff and Kogane had disarmed him.

"Okay, I'm impressed, mullet head." Mullet Head! That's where she heard his name. He was the frenemy Lance was always ragging on. The irritation of my irritations is my, what? The way Lance went on, she's assumed that "arrogant, thinks-he's-better-than-everyone, dropout Keith" was a rich, spoiled, over-privileged hothead. She wondered if Lance knew Kogane's real story.

She'd bet money that his only real human connection was to Shirogane. She could totally see him losing it on some conceited instructor going on about pilot error being the reason behind the shuttle's destruction. It was certainly what Katie wanted to do.

Kogane. Keith. He was like her, someone who'd lost family in an accident that everyone knew about but no one seemed to care about. No need to snoop any more … except.

"Just one quick look about where he lived before foster care. Just an address to see if he's there," she pulled up his placement file and it opened to a police report.

Katie stared at the photograph of the kid, bloody and swollen, she read the officer's notes and the doctor's evaluation. She closed the computer down and took deep breaths until she stopped shaking.

"WTF. How does some adult do that to a kid? To his own son?"

She logged back into her computer, trashed the file and deleted it. Not cool, Katie.

* * *

"I shouldn't have looked," said Pidge, "I'm sorry. Really, really sorry."

They were sitting now, leaning up against the black lion. Keith's expression hadn't changed since she started her story, not that he had the widest emotional range to begin with. He gave her a shrug.

"You were trying to find your family and I was a lead. I'd have done the same."

It was an effective way to shut down the conversation. But Pidge had been carrying around this guilty secret since meeting Keith, and she wasn't ready to let it go just yet.

"Lance, Hunk and me, we go on about our families a lot. Is that difficult for you?" She thought she saw Keith's back tense. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, I'm too-"

"It doesn't bother me, talking about it. I got pretty good at it when I was in therapy." He paused and glanced furtively at Pidge. "I didn't need it, I mean," he was agitated, "I was never diagnosed with anything. It's just, you know, one of the perks of being in a group home - home visits by shrinks and the latest in psychotropic drugs." Pidge kept a neutral look on her face, but it just made Keith more nervous. "Not that I've been medicated, hardly at all, just …" Pidge had never seen the Red Paladin so visibly flustered, even with Lance. "Arrgh, I don't know how to talk about this stuff with normal people without seeming like I want you to feel sorry for me."

"What happened to you was pretty horrible," she said as gently as she could, "not just your father, but not having a family, having a lousy childhood."

"Yeah, but so what? It's not like it's some psychological scar that haunts me. It doesn't bother me," he protested, perhaps a bit too much, "it just bothers other people. That's why it's easier not to say anything."

"Lance and Hunk notice that you don't talk about yourself or your past, Keith. They've come up with some pretty outlandish theories about you," raised by top secret government agency or wolves were her favorites. "Even Coran and Allura have wondered about you."

Keith didn't respond, so Pidge tried another approach, "When I was hiding my identity, I never felt comfortable around you guys. But afterwards, when I didn't have to guard what I said, things got better, easier and even kind of fun, when we weren't fighting for lives, that is."

Still silence. "You know, we kind of already know your deepest, darkest secret. If we're cool with that, what do you think you could tell us that would disturb us?"

That earned her a smile. "You've got a point there. Okay, ask me anything about my past."

"Was it rough? Losing your home and getting put in foster care?"

Keith thought for a moment. "I missed the freedom. Being able to go out and walk or bike as far as I wanted to. In group, they tracked where you went at all times. But most things were actually better in foster care. There was always enough food, always someone in charge of cooking, the walls didn't have holes in them and there were people to talk to. If you think I'm antisocial now, you should have seen me as a kid. There were a few boys in group who were really bad, but most of them were mostly okay. And it was never boring. I used to wish that they had taken custody away from my father earlier, back when I was young and cute. That way I'd have ended up in foster home, in a regular house with parents and siblings. They might even have adopted me. I would have liked to have a family who cared about me, Shiro was the only one who did."

"There was your social worker, Kate," said Pidge, "You probably don't know what she did for you."

* * *

It had been a week since she deleted Keith's files.

A week with zero new leads.

A week with putting up with Lance's mental chaff of non-stop chatter, and Hunk's increasingly pointed questions. He wanted to know about her family, about her friends, about how she was getting along at the garrison, about the times she'd almost decked an upperclassman who was going on about how if only he had been the pilot for the Kerberos mission, the team would have returned for a hero's welcome. Hunks attention was irritating because he was a sweet dork, just like Matt. Katie had a soft spot in her heart for dorks.

Tonight, she promised herself, was the night to make progress, otherwise she might as well be a girl crossdressing in some Asian romcom. She pulled up Keith's application. He'd listed Shiro and his social worker, Kate, as character references, with their emails and phone numbers.

On a hunch, she copied Kate's email and looked it up in the state system. Now this site was insecure. She ran a search for any emails and pulled up an impressive list. Most of them started about a week before Keith's write up date.

She started with the earliest. It was a letter from Kate to Galaxy Garrison's office, explaining that she had received a call from some woman who hadn't given her name but said she was from the garrison. The woman had demanded confidential information about Keith, which Kate had refused. Kate wanted to know if this was a legit inquiry and why, when she'd called Keith's number, his roommate said he hadn't seen him since the previous afternoon.

Kate was none too happy with the garrison's response and she'd started a blitzkrieg of emails and phone calls. And in each email, she listed her previous phone and email attempts, with their dates and times. By the day of Keith's official write up, there were nearly 60 entries in her log. Her log! Katie knew a useful data set when she saw one.

Katie pulled up a schematic of the base's buildings – because spreadsheets were for unimaginative clods – and mapped everyone's assigned office along with their landlines and cell numbers. A while ago, she'd located a database of phone calls, which included durations and any call transfers. There weren't any recordings or transcripts, but Katie didn't need to know what they were saying, she just needed to find out who was talking to who.

The state government had some legacy system that routed all outgoing calls as coming from a set of 45 numbers, but knowing the timing of Kate's calls meant Katie could pick them out from the total incoming calls and track where they went. Each call then lit up a corresponding phone number in blue. Most were to the Cadets' office or the base communications department. But that was fine because she was interested in who the recipients called next. She extended the range of her query for half an hour after each of Katie's calls, limited to internal calls only. The results scattered dots everywhere, but some places got pinged several times. She grabbed these and did another round of queries with her algorithm. This time far fewer phones lit up; they were converging.

With then next iteration she had it down to four numbers, and two belonged to the same woman. Reversing the call log she saw the phone sent outgoing calls to the White House, the UN Headquarters in New York City, the EU in Brussels and all major research radiotelescopes. And she found one call, the day after Keith went missing, to Kate the social worker. These numbers belong to the person Katie had been searching for – Major Reah Gabris, Military Intelligence Officer.

Almost the first thing Katie saw when she hacked into Gabris's computer was a folder labeled "cadet_kagone." She opened it and scanned the files.

"Looks like I wasn't only one dipping into your emails, Kate." Gabris had a record of pretty much everything Katie had found, along with one labeled, "off_the_case."

It was from Kate's supervisor who was, it appeared, very apologetic. He was sorry, once again, that he had given her the wrong pickup location and so she had missed Keith when the garrison released him. He was sorry that after a month, they hadn't been able to locate him. And he was sorry that, given Keith was less than a year from aging out of foster care, they had decided not to devote any more resources to his case. They were officially removing him from the system. Finally, he was "genuinely" sorry that it had ended this way. "I know Keith was one of your success stories," he'd written. "Regardless of the outcome, you were really there for him and it showed."

Kate had sent a follow up response, acknowledging the email and adding: "Don't count Keith Kogone out just yet. He's going to do great things, somewhere. I'll bet a lunch on it."

* * *

"Wow," said Keith, "I didn't realize she'd even known I was gone. I should have gotten in contact with her."

"Do it when we get back to Earth, Keith. I think she won her bet."

"Yeah," Keith smiled, "I could show up flying in on the Red Lion."

"Or the Black Lion?" asked Pidge.

"No," Keith was back to his serious self, "I'm not going-"

"Keith, we need someone to lead the team. And you're that person. I know Hunk agrees with me and, since you can pilot the Black Lion, Allura can't object.

"And Lance?"

"We'll crack that nut-head when we need to," said Pidge. "But it's not just us, it's what Shiro wanted."

"Did he tell you?" Keith's voice was less shocked than anxious.

"He didn't need to, it was obvious. The way he treated you, you were his second. I'd have been jealous, but you proved him right on several occasions."

"Being impulsive is different that being a leader," Keith insisted, "You saw my misconduct file."

"Not much of it, actually. It was a grainy PDF of the paper version, and someone had taken a sharpie to most of it. It did have the charges: breaking and entering, theft, espionage, property damage, assaulting an officer, that one was repeated at least three times, battery, and behavior unbecoming of a cadet."

"Not leadership material," said Keith.

"Are you kidding, I had a total Lance-envy moment. Here I was, super-hacker infiltrator, and I find out that by the time I had become mildly suspicious of the military's story, you'd already physically broken into the intelligence complex and found evidence."

"And got caught," Keith added, "It was stupid, what I did. You found out tons more sitting up on that roof than I did by getting caught."

"Haven't you been listening? I found a crack because you'd already smashed the door," codes to access classified radio telescope transmission, the alien communication frequencies, NSA analysis of threat level: The data and links had all been in Gabris's files. "What exactly did you do? I never figured that part of it out."

For a moment, Keith was silent, then he shrugged. "Well, like you said, you already know I'm part Galra."

* * *

Keith stood in front of Lieutenant Hamid's apartment door and took a deep breath. This was the turning point. Once he knocked, he was committed.

He knocked. The door opened to reveal a slight young man, with close-cropped black hair and a sparse but determined mustache and gotee that failed to make him look distinguished. He seemed puzzled, but his face warmed when he saw who it was.

"Keith. Hey, man, come on in."

The quarters had the same layout as Shiro's, standard issue for recent cadet graduates.

"Sit down," Hamid gestured to the couch. On the end-table there was a flattish bowl containing coins, a set of keys and a photo ID. "Can I get you anything to drink, a … well you're still underage, so maybe a tea or a soda?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks."

Hamid got a concerned look on his face. "I'm still reeling from it. The news reports … I just can't believe Shiro is gone.

Keith nodded. For this to work, he needed to appear sad and vulnerable, not angry.

"How are you holding up? I know Shiro was like family to you."

"I'm okay," said Keith without any conviction, "Everything they're saying …"

"We only have the initial reports," said Hamid, "There's still the final report due out, I'm sure they'll have a more complete story."

Keith's ears perked up. "You're in intelligence, Hamid. Are you saying you've heard something?" Maybe he'd get his information another way, maybe he wouldn't have to go through with his plan.

"I …" Hamid was now avoiding Keith's eyes, "No. Listen, if I knew anything, I'd break regs and tell you. But I'm pretty low in the organization. I'm in charge of analyzing transportation systems. Major Gabris is in charge of the Kerberos investigation, and she mostly keeps to her office these days. I know because my cubicle's just down the hall from hers."

Keith had been at the upperclassmen's party where they opened their assignments. Everyone had burst out laughing when Hamid, of all people, was assigned to intelligence, not because he wasn't smart enough, but because he was too honest. Shiro's opinion was it was good to have honest people in there and Keith felt a momentary pang considering what he was planning.

"And it's been busy in there recently. All sorts of people, important generals and even politicians have been going in and out nonstop. I'm sure it means there's more data and they're looking at revising the report."

Keith wanted to say that if there were new technical findings, then it should have been scientists and engineers stopping by, not politicians. Instead he prodded a bit more, "They're saying Shiro misjudged the entry. But you know he practiced in the simulator until he could do it blindfolded. It was an experimental aircraft. Could they be covering up for a design flaw or manufacturing defect?"

Hamid raised his hands, "I honestly don't know any more than you. But in the end, does it matter? I mean, Shiro's gone and whatever the truth is, it's not going to bring him back." Keith nodded, not so much in agreement, but because he needed to be done with this conversation. He was going to have to go through with his original plan.

Hamid rested a hand on Keith's shoulder, like Shiro used to do. "If you need to talk to someone … me, or Chris, or Lana, any of the old gang, we'd all be glad to. I know we treated you like the kid back in our garrison days, but we're your friends. We're all here for you. Oh," he stood up, "that reminds me." He walked out of the room.

Now was his chance. Keith hesitated a moment. Hamid was right about Shiro being gone. But the truth did matter. He took a deep breath and pocketed Hamid's badge, that had been sitting out on the table.

Hamid came back with a framed photo. "Lana got this framed and I was supposed to bring it to Shiro's going away party. But I was a goof and misplaced it. Anyway, I'm sure Shiro would have wanted you to have it."

It was from the graduation ceremony, with them all in their dress uniforms and everyone but Keith clutching diplomas. Keith was wearing Shiro's hand-me-downs and his jacket was super wide in the shoulders. He was smiling as big as any of them, happy to be part of Shiro's group.

"Thanks," said Keith, and he meant it. Hamid gave him an awkward male hug. Keith returned it with the knowledge that, given what he was about to do, Hamid would probably want nothing to do with him after tonight.

The intelligence building was at the edge of the base. The outside fence was heavily fortified, with barbed wire and security cameras. Keith had planned out his morning jogs to scout it out. There was one stretch of fence where the cameras were further apart and it was here that he dropped the wire cutters.

In his best case scenario, where he found proof and made it out before security caught him, he might use them. He hadn't planned any further than that, mostly because he doubted he'd get that far.

After the drop, Keith strolled leisurely down the sidewalk. There weren't any lights in the windows and no guards stationed at the gatehouse. He glanced around once more and dashed towards the front doors.

This time there was no hesitation. He'd committed to this mission and had no self-doubt. Keith held Hamid's card up to the security pad. He heard a faint beep and a click as the door unlocked. Keith slipped in, closing the door softly behind him.

Once inside, he kept his body low and scuttled to the corner, right below the door camera and hopefully out of range. For all he knew, some human monitoring a bank of screens was calling in an intruder. But if he was lucky, maybe they were looking the other way just then.

It was dark in the hallway. Keith, grateful for whatever lucky gene had given him such good night vision, crept along the hallways. When Hamid had gotten his assignment, he'd given Shiro and Keith a tour, under the premise that Keith might be interested in a desk job. In actuality, he wanted to show off his cubicle and his fancy computer set up. Keith remembered the location and saw the hallway Hamid had mentioned. He found the major's office and was pleased to see standard key locks.

Keith pulled out a worn leather pouch with a small set of rods. A former group home roommate named Dante had shown Keith the basics of lock picking and with practice, Keith had gotten quite good. He heard the pins line up and turned the handle. No cameras in this room. Keith walked over to the large desk and turned on his red-filter flashlight.

Major Gabris kept a neat, organized desk. Her drawers held office supplies, tissues, and three bags of chocolate. The lowest, and largest door was locked, which was even easier to pick. Inside, it was stacked with folders and the one on top was labeled Kerberos.

Flashlight in mouth, Keith paged through it. The first sheets were an authorization for Gabris to manage the investigation. Then came page after page of technical reports. But not on the spacecraft or the decent. One was a spectral analysis of not only Kerberos and Pluto, but also other planets and moons in the solar system. Another seemed to be a bunch of plotted trajectories near Pluto, but going out into deeper space. And there was a sheet on gravitational fields. It didn't make sense.

Then he found the photos. 8x10 glossy black and white shots that had been magnified several times so that they were starting to pixilate. But he could clearly make out three figures in space suits around some sort of drilling device. They were like the three bears: small, medium, and large with broad shoulders – that one had to be Shiro.

This was proof that Shiro had successfully landed the craft. But there was no documentation on the photo to prove it wasn't fake, just a time stamp. And anyway, if they'd made it to the surface, why the cover-up about the landing error?

There were more photos. The second one had been taken a few minutes later and must have been overexposed in the middle. It was almost like there was a beam of light captured in it. Shiro's head was raised upwards as if looking at something.

The next photo clearly showed a beam, whiting out nearly everything in the center except the three figures. They were several feet off the ground, their arms and legs flailing. Something was sucking them up into the sky. Abducted, that was the word.

"Aliens?" Keith said the word aloud. Could the military be covering up evidence of actual aliens? In all the scenarios he'd dreamed up, he'd never imagined it would involve extra-terrestrials.

There was one final photo, a continuation of the light beam, but higher up. Probably from the top shuttle camera. Against the milky way was a dark outline, taller than it was wide with purple highlights. A spaceship. No, a warship.

A cold shudder ran down Keith's spine. This wasn't just about Shiro or the garrison. This was about the survival of the Earth, of humanity. He didn't know why he was so certain, he just was.

But what could he do about it? Post the photos on some conspiracy web site? Confront the military about what he knew? Either way, he needed more evidence.

Just as he reached back in the drawer, he heard faint footsteps. Several people were coming his way. They were starting and stopping, so not a cleaning crew or roaming security guard.

Keith's heart was racing and yet he felt calmer than he had all night. It was out of his hands now. He'd surrender and deal with the consequences. Part of him hadn't expected to get even this far before getting caught.

A bright light shone through the glass door. "Whoever is there, stand up slowly and raise your hands in the air."

Keith started to straighten up, but even as he moved, he heard a crash and a thud as a small grey canister landed about a foot away from him. It started hissing and spilling out a yellow gas. The smell was noxious and Keith's eyes began to water.

He looked up to see a figure in a face mask moving through the now empty door frame. There was a gun in his hands. Suddenly a court martial no longer seemed like the worst-case scenario.

A feeling of clarity came to Keith and his body reacted. He ducked, rolled to the side of the desk, and before the man could react, Keith's leg shot out, sweeping away the soldier's legs out from under him. At the same time, Keith reached for the still-hissing canister and lobbed it as hard as he could back out through the door frame. Outside, it collided with another figure, knocking it backwards.

Keith leaped over the sprawled figures and out of the room. There was a soft pop of bullets and bits of plaster flew off the wall behind him. He counted four more soldiers, two of them rushing him. Keith dodged the first punch but the other grabbed his arms and waist. Keith twisted, driving his elbow just below the man's ribcage. The grip lessened but before Keith could twist away completely, he caught a shadow in his peripheral vision. Before he could react, a fist made contact with the side of his head.

His vision blacked out and a roar filled his head. The next thing he knew, he was laying on the floor. He tried to lift himself up but something prodded the back of his head and with a click, every nerve went tingly, then numb. And that's when he passed out.

* * *

He awoke in a small cell with metal walls, a cold metal floor, and a solid metal door with two closed metal slots, one at eye level and another at the base. The only two items in the cell were a thin, mildewy-smelling mattress pad and a metal toilet. Above him, protected behind a metal grate, a long fluorescent tube cast greenish yellow light over the room.

He'd been dumped on the floor. Keith lay still, listening. There were occasional clanking sounds, otherwise everything was quiet. He rolled himself onto the mattress, his body aching and head pounding.

He'd never fought like that, never for his life. At the group home, he'd established himself as fast, able to dodge punches and, if things got bad, use his opponent's own momentum to throw them to the ground. It had never gone further than that, and soon his reputation kept the others at bay. More recently, he'd practiced judo with some classmates, but that was a controlled situation.

The attacking guards and the bullets, that had been real. And his responses had been real too. He had to admit it, he liked that.

Everything was different now. He was a criminal. Aliens were out there. Shiro … Shiro could still be alive. He'd never dared hope that Shiro could have been rescued – Kerberos was so remote, even the journey out there had taken over nine months. But now, he could hope. Keith let that single pleasant thought carry him to sleep.

* * *

He awoke disoriented. The light was still on and he was alone. There was no food, but he wasn't yet hungry. He waited for what seemed like a long time. He couldn't be sure how long, they'd taken his watch. Eventually, his stomach began to make gurgling sounds.

He imagined he was back at the group home, during lockdown, when he'd spend hours being bored. But then he still had access to books and the exercise equipment. Here there was just silence. He refused to let his mind wander into speculation, he had to stay focused. It got harder as time stretched on.

Finally, he gave in and shouted: "Hey, is anyone out there? Do I get some food? Or water?" Silence.

It occurred to him they were keeping him in solitary to soften him up. He didn't feel any softer, so he could expect more waiting. He tried meditating. It didn't help. Meditating always made time seem slower and that wasn't what he needed in this place.

About the time he started getting seriously hungry, they shoved a tray of food with a bottle of water through the hole at the bottom of the door, which slammed shut before he could see anything through it. The water tasted metallic and the ration bars were like chewy sawdust. There was an apple too, the bright red sort with no taste. He ate quickly, aware how desperate it made him look.

Then he tried to sleep, but neither the lamp or his body would let him fall asleep. He tried counting his breaths, tried counting the occasional metal pings. He did exercises: sit-ups, push-ups, squats and stretches until he was physically worn out and had worked up a sweat.

He lay back down and let his mind wander to Shiro and what they would do if he made it back to Earth. They wouldn't be pilots together. Or perhaps, if the aliens invaded, this arrest wouldn't matter. He thought about all the movie aliens he knew. The ones that implanted themselves in your stomach, the ones that hunted humans for sport, a comedy where they kept repeating "we come in peace" even as they mowed down the humans around them. He must have fallen asleep because he awoke certain that there had been a film where the aliens had been purple and furry, with yellow eyes.

A second ration tray with the same fine dining selection as the first one appeared. After he finished, a male voice said, "Send both trays back through the opening." Keith did as he was told, but when the slot closed, his resolve broke and he started talking.

"How long are you going to keep me in here? What's going on? I have a right to a lawyer or something. I know what I saw. Are you just trying to erase me like you did Shiro?"

Silence.

"It's not going to work. I have people who know where I am," he lied, "they'll know something's up if I don't check in."

Keith craned his ears, trying to make out breathing or any indication that there was someone on the other side of the door.

"Aren't you even going to interrogate me? I'm worth keeping locked up but not enough to get answers out of? I know you can't keep me in here, it's against Geneva conventions or something. Come on, just say something!"

He was shouting and it felt good. But only for the moment. And then there was the silence and the yellow green light and his ragged breathing. Nothing had changed.

* * *

He lost track of things after that – the number of times things happened and the order they happened in. He exercised, he ate, he slept, or tried to, he yelled, he replayed memories in his head to distract himself but the ones that came to mind were rarely pleasant.

When the upper slit finally opened, he felt good and softened.

"Turn to the wall and put your hands against it," came a male voice, "Spread your feet. Do not move. Any sudden movement and we will tase you."

He complied. They fastened manacles on his ankles and cuffed his hands behind his back. Once secure, they led him through several turns of hallways to an interrogation chamber. It was just like police dramas with a large smoky glass mirror on one wall and a narrow table with two chairs. They put Keith in the one facing the glass and secured his leg chain to the ground. There were three large guards, two by the glass, and one by the door.

No one spoke or moved for several minutes. Finally, a woman came in. She was in military uniform and Keith could see her major's stripes. She wore glasses but no other adornments. She sat down across from him and looked him squarely in the eyes.

"Hello Keith," she didn't wait for him to respond, "tell us who recruited you."

"Recruited?" he hadn't expected this question, "no one, no one recruited me."

"You expect us to believe you planned and executed this act all on your own? We're going to find out. We've collected blood and hair samples. We're running the analysis now."

Keith tried to follow her logic. Did they think he was on drugs? And then it clicked. "You think I'm an alien?" he found himself laughing hoarsely, "like the ones who took Shiro?"

The woman didn't react, perhaps she looked mildly surprised.

"I know about them," Keith pressed, "I saw the pictures. You can't keep this hidden. The world needs to know."

"Aliens?" She said at last, examining him as if he had a head injury. "I'm not sure what you found from your break-in, but … aliens?" she gave a small laugh. "Who helped you plan? Was it a news organization? An internet group? Tell me now. Nothing changes until you do." Her voice was flat, but menacing.

"I …" he took a breath, "I did this on my own. I just wanted to find out what happened to Shiro."

The woman signed and stood up. "Take him away," she said over her shoulder as she left the room.

His protests and pleas were met with silence as the guards returned him to his cell. One held the Taser by his neck while the other unlocked him and quickly moved him out of the room. There was another tray of rations on the floor of his cell.

Keith slammed the metal tray against the door. He howled and shouted and managed to keep himself from crying. There was no response.

* * *

They didn't make him wait as long for the second interrogation, he counted only 5 food trays. He'd started counting time by that, ripping a ration bar wrapper to make counting shreds. It was the same routine as before, except this time a man came in. He didn't sit but stood instead, holding a sheet of paper he occasionally glanced at.

"We have determined that you are an impulsive young man whose foolish and reckless actions will have adverse consequences for the rest of your life. It's a shame, because you were such a promising cadet. You are hereby expelled from you class and dismissed from Galaxy Garrison. Once you have been released, you are neither to return to or have contact with any of your former classmates. Slip up and we'll have you officially charged."

"I'm being released?" asked Keith, confused.

"Sign here." The man shoved the paper and a pen into Keith's hands. "As a private citizen, we cannot directly stop you from talking to a lawyer or the press. But between our findings on your current bad judgement as well as your state records, we have more than enough to thoroughly discredit you. So, keep that in mind, son."

Keith tried to read the paragraphs of text on the sheet but he couldn't concentrate enough to make it through a complete sentence. Once he signed, they'd let him go. Keith signed the paper.

They unlocked his legs, but kept his hands cuffed. The guards walked him up a stairwell, at least two flights, and out into the bright desert sunshine. He was at a part of the base with boring blocks of buildings that he'd always assumed were for paper pushers or equipment storage.

There was an open gate and beyond that was parked his hover bike – the one Shiro had gotten for a graduation gift and lent to him while he was gone for the Kerberos mission. A guard unlocked the handcuffs while another kept a firm grip on his shoulder.

Finally, someone shoved two duffle bags of stuff into his hands. Keith looked up to see Commander Iverson, his face an even more unpleasant expression than usual.

"That's all your roommate said you had," He said. "Be grateful for what's there and don't be making a fuss over what's not. That's my advice."

"Yes sir," Keith's response was automatic.

Iverson snarled, "I pegged you as smarter than this. Congratulations on proving me wrong."

"I…" Keith had no response.

"The things you saw," Iverson continued, "they're real. And someday soon your fellow cadets, and everyone on this base, is going to be called on to do their duty, to protect the planet. We could have used a pilot of your caliber in that fight. Damn waste is what it is."

He turned away, leaving Keith and his bags. The soldiers gave him a rough shove and they closed the gate after him. Under their watchful eyes, Keith drove away.

* * *

"That last part was the worst. Everything after I got caught was pretty awful, but Iverson made it clear what a hot-headed, irresponsible idiot I was. And he was right."

"Iverson's a jerk." And a bully, and an egomaniac, thought Pidge. But to those carrying a Y chromosome, that John Wayne routine was the ultimate in alpha male signaling. Keith obviously lapped it up. "Besides, I think you're doing your part to protect Earth."

"Not that he has any idea," Keith gave a rare smile and the somber mood of his story was broken.

"So," said Pidge, "did you get the lone-action-star crazy solo mission stuff out of your system?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not going to ride off on the Red Lion and go looking for Shiro on your own," said Pidge.

"No. Why would I do something so stupid?" Keith asked incredulously. "Just me and Red wouldn't have a chance to find Shiro. Even if we can't form Voltron, four lions can take on anything short of one of Zarkon's Robeasts. And we need Allura and Coran's knowledge about the universe. And we need your brains, and Hunk's engineering, and Lance's … many fine qualities that are hard to sum up in a single word."

Not only was that one of the longest things she'd ever heard Keith say about his teammates, it was one of the least Keith-like things he'd ever said to boot.

"Look," Keith said, "when Shiro disappeared before, I was completely alone. You must have felt the same way about your father and brother. This time it's different. We're a team, we're together on this."

"I didn't know you felt that way, about us."

"What do you mean?" this sounded more like the Keith she knew, "I hang out with you guys all the time."

"You hang out in the same room as us," Pidge countered, "and you're usually making a mopey face."

"But isn't that what hanging out is, being in the same room? And what do you mean by mopey face?"

Before Pidge could demonstrate, Lance's voice came in over the intercom.

"Attention everyone. Slav says he knows where Shiro is—"

"That is absolutely not what I said," Slav's sing-song voice cut in. "I said that probabilistically the-"

"Yeah, yeah," Lance butted back in, "save the class lecture for when everyone can enjoy it. We're meeting in the dining room, wait till you see what Slav's done to the place. There's been a lot of math happening."


	3. Chapter 3 - Whereabouts

**Chapter 3 – Whereabouts**

Slav had taken over the dining room so effectively that Lance was already mentally referring to it as the Slav Cave. Every flat surface, the table, chairs and good chunks of the floor were covered in books and what Lance originally thought were papers, but turned out to be pieces of white cloth, scribbled over with what Lance assumed were equations. Scattered amongst the clutter were no less than eight less-than-half-filled, no-longer-hot beverages. But most impressively, Slav had located not one, but two chalkboards.

"Woah," said Hunk who was the first person to enter, "Slav is kicking it old-school."

Pidge and Keith followed. "He's got access to super-advanced computers," said Pidge, a look of incomprehension on her face, "what is he doing writing stuff down?"

"Computers are for crunching number units," said Slav with unhidden contempt. "This," he waved his arms like windmills, "is Mathematics."

"But…" said Hunk as he looked across the table, "how come you wrote on… are these napkins? Why not use paper?"

"It's a proven theory that mathematical equations written on napkins are 32 percent more ingenious than those written on standard paper. You can increase the brilliance by as much as 54.9 percent if you write in the margins of a book of love sonnets, but considering the sheer volume of proofs needed, it made sense to use napkins."

By this time, the Alteans had joined them. "Coran," said Allura, "after this is over, please lock up father's private library, and what's left of the linen closet."

"Slav," said Keith in his everyone-stop-having-fun-now voice, "We're all here. Tell us what you found."

"Well," Slav walked over to a board that was practically white with chalk and flipped it over to the clean side. He faced them with two hands behind his back while a third began to write out what was probably a complex equation – it all looked like chicken scratches to Lance. "You are, of course, all familiar with D'Stwellium's principle of co-synchronous time/space states."

There were times when Lance felt like the dim bulb of Voltron. But given the blank looks plastered to everyone faces, including girl genius Pidge, he knew he was in good company. Everyone shook their heads.

Another of Slav's hands darted out, chalk hitting the board as more marks appeared, "Well, it's a simple enough conjuncture, if you take a Purion mode of pan-infinity and pass it through a hyper-constant hyper-cluster planar, basically a generalized transformation of Thrakkorzog dilemma. You see?"

"Three yeppers in a fog?" asked Coran.

Two more hands joined the now half covered board. "The Delanian thread theorem? The Malatof-Frieberg principle? The axiom of choice? Did any of you even go to school?"

"Perhaps," said Allura in what Lance thought of as her sexy diplomat voice, "You could just skip to the conclusion."

"And use a modern interface," added Pidge.

Slav sighed a long and mournful sigh, such that Lance's own abuela couldn't have done better. Giving them all a disgusted look, he clicked one of his non-chalked fingers. The lights went down and a transparent projection of Voltron appeared between them.

"The reason that Voltron is the most powerful weapon in the universe is that each of the lions can directly tap into the universe's stores of quintessence," said Slav. As Lance watched, each lion part of Voltron was surrounded by a cloud of its own color which came together to form a bright light surrounding the robot.

"Each lion connects to its own principle quintessence. And that quintessence harmonizes with the paladin, either through their "mystical" bond, or more directly, through connection their Bayard, to take on physical form."

"Oh, I got this," volunteered Lance, "Blue's got water, Red's fire, Yellow's rock, and Green's planty things, right?"

"A remarkably ignorant and, yet, still marginally correct simplification," said Slav, somehow making his eyes frown as well as his beak.

"But I get an A for effort?" Lance gave Slav his best smile.

"Yyepp." said Slav and Lance decided to be quiet. The robot projection separated leaving the Black Lion, still surrounded by a black haze.

"The Black Lion draws on the most fundamental of quintessence, that of space, which not only includes the near infinity of our own universe, but also, by the Malacor postulate, folded time and dimensional space. Don't try to contemplate it, personally it gives me migraines. Suffice to say, when the Black Paladin activates the Bayard it accesses several higher planes of reality. That was how it amplified the power of Voltron's sword."

"Oh, the fire thing!" said Hunk. Thank goodness someone was still speaking English, thought Lance. "Remember guys, how we had Zarkon pinned down at the end of the battle but his armor was too strong and then Shiro used the Bayard and the sword cut thought the armor like it was butter? I just assumed it had gotten really hot, but accessing extra dimensional space makes sense too." Lance hoped for a second that the cartoon projection would replay that totally awesome moment, but instead a teleduv jump circle appeared and the Black Lion flew towards it.

"Based off energy readings," said Slav, "I believe Shiro's Bayard was still acting as a conduit, tapping into the higher dimensions, when we jumped. But the teleduv jump utilizes a lower dimensional space. Something in the Lion's Stevanian technology allows it to handle the stress caused by the difference between these realities. But a human, like Shiro, would have exploded and imploded at the same time. Since we didn't find any bits of him inside the cockpit, I believe his lion somehow intervened and sent him somewhere for his own protection."

Keith's face had blanched when Slav mentioned exploding/imploding paladin. Lance elbowed him, "See, his lion saved him." Keith gave Lance a small smile which in Keith-land probably meant he was greatly relieved.

"But sent where?" asked Pidge, "Some sort of parallel reality?"

"No, no, parallel dimensions are only theoretically possible to access, I've tried. No, it would have to be one that was within a few degrees of a right angle to our reality. You need an intersection point, a consistency between both realities. It's usually a reality with some detectable changes and running on an independent time scale, but otherwise recognizable."

"Then how do we get him back?" asked Keith. Which had been exactly what Lance had been going to say, darn Keith and his Galra reflexes.

"If that's what happened to him," said Slav, "then there's almost no chance. You'd need to find the particular reality and its time point entry which would be very tricky. And opening it with a portal, nearly impossible. Luckily, I've calculated the probability of an interdimensional universe jump being very small - only 0.42 percent. It's far more likely, 78.9 percent in fact, that Shiro was teleported somewhere within our own universe."

"Well, that sounds better," said Hunk. "Except, you know, like 99.99999999999999999 percent of the universe is just vast empty space. So, not that much better."

"In a surprising bout of optimism, given my pragmatic personality," said the non-smiling Slav, "I believe that if the Black Lion took the initiative to save Shiro's life, it would have sent him somewhere survivable. Based on our teleduv's trajectory and the universe's ley lines, I've predicted the 1236 most likely destinations." The visuals changed to the now familiar space universe that Coran and Allura were so fond of, with light-up solar systems all over the place.

"Um, quick question," said Coran, "but what about the… take away from … borrow from the 10 and … carry the one … remaining 20 percent?"

"18 percent actually - I always save 2 percent in case I failed to account for any unexpected events," said Slav. "There's an 18 percent chance that the quintessence conversion reversed itself and the Black Paladin was incorporated into the fundamental quintessence of the universe. Less technically, it could be said that he transcended this mortal plane."

"You mean he could be dead?" asked Allura with great alarm.

"No, no," said Slav, "dead would mean he was gone. Transcendence means that an aspect of his person still exists, separate from us but still aware of us, and we of him."

"You mean he's in heaven, looking down on us?" asked Lance. Put that way it wasn't the worst thing, but it certainly was one of the worse.

Slav looked decidedly uncomfortable and spoke slowly. "That would be one culturally sensitive interpretation of the situation." Score one for the Catholic, thought Lance. "But, let's focus on the 80 percent chance that he's fully corporeal in this reality."

"Um, excuse me," said Hunk, "but I have a question."

Lance had noticed Hunk's halfway raised hand and nudged Keith – not because he was Lance's first choice to confide in, but because Pidge had called up her computer controls and was now more engrossed in her screen time than a five-year-old in front of Netflix. "Watch Slav, Hunk's about to work some magic."

"Huh?"

"I've seen this happen to three teachers back at the Garrison, including Sergeant McLarky, and she hated everyone."

"Slav," Hunk was saying, "earlier, you talked about the essences of quintessence and now you mentioned fundamental quintessence. Are there different flavors of quintessence, like strange and charmed quarks?"

"Quintessence isn't a particle," Slav replied almost dismissively, but there was something alert in his body language.

"Um, then is it some sort of force? Like gravitational or electromagnetic?" Hunk asked.

"Quintessence isn't a force," and this time, Slav watched Hunk carefully like he could see gears turning inside Hunk's head.

"Well, if it's not a physical thing or a fundamental law …" Slav leaned in closer, "then, could it be some primary component of our universe, or even, reality?" Slav was nodding, his saucer eyes beaming. "Wow … and you can detect this?"

"Detect, prove and, in a limited capacity, manipulate," said Slav gleefully, "Here, let me show you …" He started digging through the clutter on the table. "Here- no, here? Maybe…"

"What just happened?" asked Keith.

"Hunk just went from being the big guy in the back row to Slav's prize pupil." It was like when the nerd friend in the teen romance movies takes off her glasses to totally steal the protagonist's heart – not that Lance was into those kinds of movies. Anyway, he felt definite pride when Hunk shone like this.

"Because he answered the question?" Keith was still confused and Lance decided to be magnanimous while savoring the moment.

"Nope, because he showed he was genuinely interested in what Slav was talking about. Teachers dig that attitude." He would have elaborated, but Pidge interrupted.

"Hey, everyone, I found something" she called out, "I cross referenced Slav's coordinates with the decrypted Galra transmissions and there's a group calling themselves the Hobro Mercenary Ltd. operating out of the Databuni Ring who just sent a message about a prisoner they captured. They're looking to collect the bounty on Zarkon's enhanced arm Earthling Champion."

* * *

More than a thousand years ago, the Datubuni civilization took to space.

They didn't have much of a choice. Depletion of their planetary resources coupled with major climate disruption from industrialization had made the surface of their planet nearly uninhabitable.

But the Datubuni were an optimistic, never-look-back race of aliens and their planet's own asteroid ring was practically made for building orbital satellites. Over the next century, they mined out the smaller asteroids for materials to convert the larger ones into off-world habitats. Of course, everything is limited, but before they ran out of raw materials and places to build, nearly every Datubuni clan had their own personal satellite world.

And what amazing satellites, each interior customized and unique - sweeping palatial gardens to underwater kingdoms to gleaming white negative space to amusement parks. Word got out about these marvels and soon the Datubuni Ring, as it was marketed, became the vacation destination place. The Datubuni entrepreneurs took the tourists' money and fashioned even more elaborate environments, many inhospitable, or even lethal to a Datubuni, but ideal for targeted alien tour groups. Home away from home the travel agents used to say.

Naturally, some aliens didn't want to go home. The money to be made from tourism was nothing compared to selling time shares, or even long term leasing of whole satellites. Economically-speaking, the Datubuni were some of the richest aliens in space.

However, they also lived in the highest-cost-of-living real estate in space. Everything –food, water, environmental control units, gravitational stabilizers, asteroid collision insurance – was just so expensive. Most Datubuni commuted from the inner satellites – the utilitarian, cramped ones that had been built during the first wave of colonization, but still cost a bundle to keep viable – and worked long hours meeting their tourists' and tenants' needs all the while dreaming of that less expensive solar system they'd retire to.

This is what Ogeneish Ropelmerger Borsch Logyegrater did 9 out of 11 quintiles of the week. He flew 2 vargas to work a 13 vargas shift as a space flight controller. Some quintiles his carefully directed flight plans prevented catastrophic space collisions, but mostly he was just the guy lost tourists called to asked for directions.

He was also in charge of making sure the wrong people didn't get into his sector. And the unmarked shuttle that had just come around a small mined out asteroid that a split second earlier had been backlit by a blue flash of light, seemed a tad suspicious.

Ogeneish – who, like all his people, looked like a fuchsia tripod, with a large head, three legs and three arms – did a quick registration search. He found nothing. Next, he visually cross referenced the image against ships previously spotted across the ring. Nothing. Finally, he executed a safety scan. Nothing, that ship had some top-grade shields.

"Excuse me, unknown shuttle" Ogeneish broadcasted, "please state your ID and system of origin." There was no reply. Ogeneish gave his control board a hard bang, because the system hadn't been upgraded since the warranty ran out, nearly four decades ago. He signaled the ship again, this time the system crackled a bit and the shuttle's pilots popped up on a screen.

They were Galra, which explained a lot. But, made the actual situation much worse, potentially much, much worse. Galra rarely went on vacations, they were stingy, and they rarely left positive reviews.

The Galra pilot was rather small and his face was obscured by a mask. The second Galra wore a standard, if dated, uniform and helmet. He had the most enormous, bushy purple mutton chops sideburns, they went practically up to his nose.

It was this Galra that spoke, in a grumbly but strangely accented voice. "I am Commander Heroniok of the 31th battalion of the 8th legion of the 3rd fleet of the Galra Empire, better known as the Screaming Loraxes."

"Never heard of you," said Ogeneish attempting to sound brave and threatening, as if he had a battalion of Datubuni fighter craft on call to launch at suspicious characters, which of course, he didn't.

"Of course you haven't. By the time we wrap up a planet-side tour, the natives don't have enough remaining technology to send out smoke signals. We leave destruction, chaos, and nightmares in our wake. Old women scare their grandchildren with stories of our exploits."

"Oh," gulped Ogeneish, his salary was docked for any damage that happened on his shift, "that doesn't sound pleasant."

"Truer words were never spoken," said the Galra, "Lucky for you, we're off duty. Out for a little R&R and we got a recommendation for a …" he looked down "says here, Satellite Crimson 12."

Crimson 12. It was the first bit of good news Ogeneish had heard all day. Crimson 12 was run down to the point that no respectable aliens would dream of visiting, which meant it was perfect for no-good lowlifes to do whatever it was they did, and pay the Datubuni to turn a blind eye. The Galra could blow the place up and the Datubuni would simply make a profit on its insurance policy.

"Excellent choice," said Ogeneish, "I'm sending you a flight path and clearing you for docking port on the planet side of the station." And, because the Datubuni had a reputation for hospitality, he added, "Enjoy your stay."

* * *

Inside the shuttle, the pilot turned to the larger Galra.

"Do you think we fooled him?"

"Hardly matters," said the Commander, his voice an octave higher, "Scared the living Tulurians out of him. He's going to spend the rest of his shift looking the other way so hard, he'll have a neck cramp."

Keith lowered his suit's mask. The thing was hot, he wasn't sure how the furry Galra could manage. Kolivar had left Keith the suit along with Coran's costume and other useful Galra stealth equipment. It felt odd going into a potential trap without his Bayard, but at least he had his knife.

On an encrypted frequency, Keith hailed the Green Lion, "Pidge, we're in. Sending you the satellite location and our docking info. How are you doing?"

"I've successfully hacked into their information network, but apparently everyone's live streaming their vacations, so it's running like molasses. And it's gotten slower now that Lance has found what looks like the spring-break beach-party channel," she added, disgust obvious in her voice.

"It's not my fault that I'm bored," said Lance, "Keith and Coran get to go undercover as Galra soldiers, meet up with the mercenaries in a space bar to figure out if they really have Shiro and negotiate a trade. So, while they're having an awesome time, we hang out in invisible mode and watch to see that no one sneaks off in a space ship."

"It's an important role in the plan, Lance," insisted Coran, "We don't know how many of them there will be, it could be a trap. There could be an all-out battle. But, given that these are mercenaries, you can be sure they'll take our negotiation money to their ship, so if they try to give us the slip, you'll be able to figure out which of these satellites are their base."

"Yeah, it's a totally great plan, Coran," snarked Lance.

"Why thank you for saying that. I'm quite pleased with it myself," Keith glanced at Coran but with the helmet he couldn't determine if he was being serious.

Keith wouldn't admit in a million years but he had to agree with Lance. Coran's plan felt thin – too many things that they didn't know about could go wrong. Shiro would never have signed off on it, that's for certain.

But that's why they needed Shiro. He was their leader, had been since they left Earth. Ten minutes into meeting them, Allura had recognized him as the Black Paladin. So, right now they needed to focus on getting him back-not on who was going to pilot the Black Lion, or lead the team, not any of those things that would matter once Shiro was rescued.

"So, Coran's got his super Altean diplomat skills, but I still don't see why Keith gets to play the Galra, he's too short," said Lance, "and he's all sulky and non-verbal, no acting skills."

"That's why he doesn't need acting skills," sighed Pidge, "and besides, the suit didn't fit you, remember. Anyway, Coran, we'll keep radio silence until you're inside. Green Lion out."

"Poor Lance. We must find something exciting for him to do next time," said Coran, "but he's wrong, impersonating Galra and outwitting blood-thirsty goons, that doesn't take diplomatic skills." His tone was thoughtful, contemplative and the way he gently shook his head made Keith certain that a meandering, culturally-incomprehensible Coran story was on its way. The computer was reporting 10 vargas to docking, short of an emergency, there was no way Keith was getting out of this.

"Why, I remember one time," Coran began, "when I was diplomatting for the Galra and this other Altean, Blorclues, Blorkalras, whatever, he was diplomatting for the Ruxs, and we sat down to hammer out a-"

"Wait," Keith interrupted, "What do you mean, diplomatting? And why does each side have their own Altean?" He had intended to just let the story take its course, but this was too weird for even Keith to ignore.

"Diplomatting is the act of being a diplomat between two races that can't be within 100 light-years of each without starting a war or something. And, of course, each side has their own Altean. You wouldn't want to leave diplomatting to an amateur."

"That's not how we do it on Earth," said Keith, "each side has their own diplomats." At least, that's how he thought it worked. He'd always been more interested in the fighting than the peaceful bits of history class.

"Interesting," said Coran, "does it work well for averting conflicts and war?"

"Not particularly" admitted Keith.

"Don't be so hard on your planet, not every alien race has the proper temperament to be a good diplomat," said Coran, "Alteans have a natural talent for forming communities. They can draw on individuals' strengths to create groups that are more than just the skills of their members. Doesn't mean it's all roses and rainbows, there's always a bit of wrong-way rubbing. But, for an Altean, nothing is so grand as being surrounded by a diverse set of people interacting and arguing, sharing and scheming, laughing and pouting. You paladins are a quirky lot, but I miss the absolute chaos of a diplomatic assignment."

"I think I'd go crazy surrounded by all of that," said Keith.

"Really? What's your ideal comfort state?"

This was the point where Keith's natural inclination was to shut down the conversation. But with Pidge's comments still fresh in his memory, he did his best to answer.

"I prefer solitude," he said, "there was this small mountain range by my house on Earth. Sometimes I'd take my camping gear and hike up to the highest point. Sunsets were amazing, red skies over red rock and desert. And at night, the only sign of civilization was maybe the lights from two or three houses. On moonless nights, the stars would fill the sky. Even the dark patches, if you looked long enough, your eyes would adjust and see faint dots of light." As he described it, his body remembered the sensations. "There were the rustling sounds of animals and the howls of coyotes, but no cars or music or people sounds. It felt like I was the only human left on earth." Describing it that way sounded anti-social. "You don't think that's my Galra side, do you?"

"Oh, I doubt that," Coran assured him, "The Galra are very fraternal, strong brotherly relationships that translate to life-long bonds with their fellow soldiers."

Keith was tempted to press Coran for more information, but they'd reached their destination.

The satellite, Crimson 12, was built into a small asteroid with the docking ports sticking out like porcupine quills. Many had ships. Keith docked the shuttle at the designated spot and pulled up his face mask. They were met by a Datubuni official who eyed Keith's knife, but said nothing. He gave them an interactive pamphlet map and directed them to a conveyer belt leading down.

Walking around as a Galra was a different experience for Keith. Even when he was in Paladin gear, he felt like more like a curiosity to the other aliens. As a Galra, everyone noticed you, but then looked the other way and the space around Keith and Coran magically opened up.

They emerged onto the main thoroughfare, three stories high with the ceiling sporting animated advertisements. Along the walls, lighted signs identified establishments in multiple languages, and some very explicit symbols. It reminded Keith of the Hong Kong cinema that Shiro used to watch, if the extras were all multicolored with extra appendages. The metal walls were patched and dirty, none of the shiny surfaces of the Galra ships, or the Space Mall for that matter. His fear that the meeting place would resemble a Starbucks was fast leaving him.

"Ah, here we are," said Corin cheerfully consulting the map, "the Collack's Teeth, not highly rated."

Keith didn't notice the door so much as the massive blue refrigerator-sized alien with dreadlock like tubes coming out of his head. His mouth was so overburdened with teeth, or maybe tusks that Keith wasn't surprised when he greeted them with a growl.

"Be a good Db'ti'kebao and open the door now," said Coran in a lower octave. The Db-whatever blinked his one eye in a bored, disdainful way.

"You don't want to be giving a Lorax any trouble," said Coran and he stepped into the alien's personal space. The two engaged in a staring contest, Coran standing on his toes. After a moment, the alien slouched and let them pass.

"It's good to have a reputation," said Keith.

"In this place, it's good to have a bad reputation," agreed Coran.

Growing up, Keith had occasionally been sent to a hole-in-the-wall bar to fetch his father. And after getting kicked out of the Garrison he'd scored a fake ID to get into the biker bar. This place was nothing like those, more of a night club than simply a bar. The paint was chipped, fabric on the seats and curtains was faded and stained but the place must have been impressive in its day.

A purple bar at least twenty feet long ran along one wall. There was a stage tucked in the corner where an Unilu moved her hand over a metal ringed instrument to produce a buzzy vibrating melody. There might have been a dance floor at one time, but now the space was crowded with tables.

Keith made a visual sweep of the place and was relieved not to see any real Galra. The barman and most of the waitresses were Databuni and he spotted more than a few Unilues in proper pirate gear. He recognized a few species he'd seen at the space mall and a party that resembled the aliens that had stolen the blue lion. But at least half of the aliens were races he'd never seen.

Everyone radiated a dangerous vibe, if only to ward off trouble. He'd certainly dropped back to his tense body language he'd taken whenever a new kid had shown up at the group home.

"Well, what's it like?" Lance asked through his intercom.

"Like the Star Wars Cantilena bar, but less sandy. And the alien's playing a Theremin," said Keith.

He heard Lance curse and Pidge said, "Unbelievable, Keith, you can't remember Cantina but you know what a Theremin is?"

"Okay you two," said Coran, "I'm putting you on mute so you can listen in but not distract." To Keith he said, "I'm going to discretely ask after our mercenaries."

He sidestepped up to a bored looking waitress and asked, "We're on the market for some unsavory characters and have a recommendation for a group going by the name Hobro. Any helpful directions will be appreciated and…" he was probably making suggestive eyebrow movements under his helmet, "compensated."

The waitress gave him a bug-eyed look and walked away. Before Coran could approach the next waitress, Keith intervened.

"Hey," he said raising his hand to get her attention, "we're looking for the Hobro Mercenaries. Which table?" She pointed to a table in the back with an Unilu and a hooded figure. "Thanks," said Keith turning away from her.

"Impressive," said Coran, "What's your secret?"

"Small words, short sentences."

The Hobro watched them as they walked across the room. The Unilu looked the part of the pirate, black heavy cloak, several visible weapons - Keith counted three knives, a sword and an eyepatch. For some reason, he also sported a white ruffled neck collar.

The second alien was completely covered save for their hands, which were more like tallons, and face.

"It's a female Shpoidig," said Coran, "Looks like she's had a nose job."

"She looks like she got a lot of jobs," said Keith. The alien had two eye, two ears, a mouth and a nose, but none in the normal, symmetrical locations. She looked like she'd been painted by that famous artist that Keith had never bothered to learn, who knew art appreciation would have been useful?

They approached the table and Coran gave the agreed upon pass code, "This place has certainly seen better times. Why I remember it back during the Kabarian uprising."

And the Unilu, in a slightly slurred voice replied, "My uncle lost his left arm in that one."

Coran gave a nod and they sat down at the table, Keith did his best to look menacing. The plan was for him to be the non-speaking muscle, but the height difference meant that everyone was a head taller than him. Real intimidating.

A waitress came over and Coran ordered something with too many consonants for Keith to catch, he shook his head when the waitress looked his way.

"Heard you have something Zarkon's been looking for," said Coran.

"Could be, could be," said the Unilu. He seemed bored.

"But, there have been, rumors, that the mighty Zarkon is not in the position to be looking for anything." said the Shpoidig. Her voice was lower and raspy, but the tone was the same.

Keith did his best not to stereotype aliens, especially since finding out about his own ancestry, but these guys didn't look tough enough, or smart enough, or with it enough, to have captured Shiro. And there was something… creepy about them.

"Doesn't matter what Zarkon is up to," said Coran with confidence, "we have his orders. Do you have Zarkon's champion or not?"

"Why in such a hurry?" asked the Shpoidig, "deals shouldn't be rushed."

"Let us converse," said the Unilu, "tell a curious mercenary what is causing so many Galra ships to be racing about."

"Yes," agreed the Shpoidig, "see, here is your drink." She took the glass from the waitress and as it passed behind her sleeve, Keith was sure he saw the shimmer of something dissolving into the liquid.

Coran, unaware, raised the drink in a toast, "To Zarkon, may he live another 10,000 years." But before he could bring it to his lips, Keith had launched himself across the table.

The drink splashed another patron, but he was naturally slimy and didn't seem to notice. Coran, on the other hand was sputtering and gesticulating underneath him.

"Sorry," said Keith, "that drink- I think I saw the Shpoidig slip something in it."

That didn't seem to appease Coran, who kept pointing at Keith. No, not at, behind. The Shpoidig had leaped up on the table and was wielding a nasty looking blade. Keith kicked up on the underside of the table, sending it, the alien flying backwards into a group of short, rock textured creatures who threw the now broken table one way, the Shpoidig the other, and started towards Keith and Coran.

"Ooh," said Coran, "G'rtt-mrs, haven't tangled with them since the days of my wayward youth." He grabbed a broken chair leg besides him and swung it. "You get the mercenaries."

Out of the corner of his eye, Keith saw the Shpoidig struggling to get up. The white caterpillar alien she'd landed on wasn't making it easy.

The Unilu wasn't so hampered and he had all his knives out. He threw the first and Keith just managed to duck. It hit the waitress's raised platter, sending drinks and glasses onto two patrons at the bar who promptly turned to the aliens on either side of them and started up, fists raised. The bartender let out a howl that seemed more joyous than angry and hopped up on top of the bar, from which vantage point he began kicking the patrons.

"Keith, what's going on?" Pidge had overridden Coran's mute command.

"I think we started a bar fight."

"What, a bar fight?" Lance shouted, "That does it, Pidge. Land this lion, now!"

Keith couldn't spare them any more attention because the Unilu was aiming knife number two. This time Keith pulled out his dagger and using that weird mind trick, he lengthened it and swatted the flying knife away.

"Bravo!" Coran called out as he swung his chair leg baseball style into the head of a boulder alien.

Not wasting any more time, Keith vaulted over an alien lying prone on the floor – there were a lot of those – and caught the Unilu's wrist which held the remaining knife. As he twisted, the Unilu took a swing at him. Keith ducked and elbowed the alien in the chin.

As the Unilu fell backwards, his neck ruff came off, revealing a white tennis ball protrusion. It appeared to be growing out of his neck.

"What the?" Keith leaned over the now unconscious alien to get a better look.

"No lolligagging, Keith!" Shouted Coran, "these guys aren't going to beat themselves senseless on their own." As if to disprove his point, behind Coran a chandelier fell on a Datubuni.

Coran practically skipped over to Keith, but as he leaned over, his purple skin paled.

"No, it can't …" visibly shaking, he reached out to touch the white growth. "Quiznak," he whispered.

"What-" began Keith but Coran cut him off.

"Keith," he yelled, "it's an Apocrytaen gall! His partner must be an agent as well. Don't let her get away."

As usual, Keith didn't have a clue what Coran was talking about. But the tone said it all. Keith glanced around the bar and saw a fluttering black robe heading for the exit. As best as he could, given the surrounding pandemonium, Keith took off running.

* * *

"Pidge, come on, faster, "said Lance, "If we don't hurry, there will only be a pile of unconscious aliens and Keith looking smug."

"Keith!" they heard Coran's voice through their headsets, "It's an Apocrytaen gall! His partner must be an agent as well." There was the sound of crashing in the background, the bar fight must still be going on. "Don't let her get away!"

"Coran," said Pidge, "what are you talking about? Hang on, we'll be there in a tick."

"No time for that!" said Coran. On a one to 10 hysteria scale, Coran usually tapped out around 12. But this time, thought Lance, he'd broken into the 20s. "Find Keith! Find the Shpoidig. She's been infested!"

"What? You mean like lice?" asked Lance.

"Infested- Infiltrated- Intruded- Tip of my tongue! Never mind, it's the Apocrytaens! The most horrifying, repulsive aliens ever to curse the universe. They should have been eradicated over ten thousand years ago. But if they're back now, even a single nest could give rise to an army! We can't let even one Apocrytaen get away."

"But what about Shiro? Do they have him, or was it a trap?" asked Pidge while Lance looked around at the maze-like corridors.

"Shiro isn't our top priority anymore! Infected! That's the word I was looking for."

A racing black figure caught Lance's eyes. He instantly recognized it as a Galra, a surprisingly short Galra, crossing a corridor about 40 yards in front of them.

"Hey, Pidge, look," he pointed, "It's Keith. Keith!"

"Keith? Keith." Pidge was talking into her headset, "Something's wrong, I'm only getting static."

"I'll get him," Lance said as he started running.

By the time he made it to the junction Keith was just rounding a corner away from him. Man, that guy was fast. Lance picked up the pace and at the next turn had decreased the distance. He was panting too hard to call out. One more turn, and the Keith was only a few yards ahead. Next turn led to a dead end.

Lance leaned over, panting a bit. "Man, Keith, what's going on? Coran's freaking out and you…" Lance looked up to see a gun pointing at him. "aren't Keith."

Trained paladin reflexes got him back around the corner just as the not-Keith Galra started firing. "Pidge!" he shouted through his headset, "Wrong Galra! And not the friendly sort."

"As if there's a friendly sort." said Pidge, "I'm on my way."

Lance shifted his Bayard into gun form and was pleased to see it was designed for use at short range. Pidge wasn't the only one who could optimize her Bayard. He waited for a pause and popped out, purposely aiming his shots low. It had the intended effect of causing the Galra to dance backwards – pretty funny too – which gave him enough time to dart in close, his gun just inches from the Galra's chest.

Unfortunately, the Galra had his gun at a similar distance from Lance's head.

"Stalemate?" asked Lance. He had to grin, because he was sure it looked action-movie cool. The Galra took a step back and to the side, then another. He was inching his way back up the corridor. A good escape if it was one on one. But those weren't the odds. Pidge, great little sneak that she was, crashed behind into the Galra's leg. He went backwards, the gun shot upwards. Lance pulled out flying kick he's been practicing and, unlike Keith, the Galra didn't duck. Pidge's Bayard turned into a grappling hook, pinching his arms together.

"And the Galra goes down! Way to go Team Plance!" shouts Lance, his hand up for a high five that never came.

"Don't use words that you don't know the subtext of, Lance," sighed Pidge, "and restrain him already."

"Paladins!" came Coran's voice, "have you found Keith?"

"Nope-" began Lance, "wait a tick." He removed the Galra's mask. A youngish Galra glared back. He was beardless, with short, dark, spikey hair, bat-like ears, yellow eyes and tiny fangs in a tiny mouth. He reminded Lance of a stray kitten, cute, scruffy, and liable to give you rabies. "No, definitely not Keith."

"Seriously?" asked Pidge. Lance shrugged. "Coran, I'm only getting static on Keith's frequency."

"You have to find him. The Apocrytaen-"

"Yeah, yeah, horrible, contagious, bad thing, bad thing," paraphrased Lance.

"P'Talaquos," said the Galra.

"Huh?" said Pidge and Lance together.

"The Apocrytean's name is P'Talaquos. She's the only one for now, but she's raising an army. She inserts her eggs into her victims, just below their heads. The egg send out tendrils into the victim's brain. That's how she controls them. By the time you can see the large gall on their necks, they're not much more than a walking incubator. Once those galls start hatching, her children will swarm the galaxy. They'll overrun planets and extinguish races, like they did before Voltron defeated them."

"Eww," Lance shuddered, "and Eww," he looked a bit sick.

"You think that's bad, pray you never see the young Apocrytean emerging. That will wake you in the middle of the night in a cold sweat," said Coran, "Who's your information source, by the way?"

"The Galra we captured," said Pidge. She turned to their prisoner, "how do you know all this?"

"I've been tracking her ship. She's been collecting hosts and information across the Databuni Ring. Whatever you thought she was giving you, it was a trap. And it sounds like your friend is her latest catch. Let her ship leave this station, and you'll lose him."

"Not going to happen," said Pidge, "I'm logged into the Databuni network. I'm monitoring every satellite in this system, and if she leaves, we can track that too."

"Even if she leaves by wormhole?"

"Wait," said Lance, "I thought we were the only ones that still used wormholes."

"We need to get to the Green Lion!" said Pidge, "We'll follow her in."

"It won't work," said Coran, "Apocryteans use tiny wormholes. None of the lions could follow them back in the day. And we were never able to find their home base."

"If you couldn't-" Pidge began, but Coran kept talking. "Lance, you need to get to the shuttle and follow them back to their base. Once there, sneak in, grab Keith, figure some way to signal us and we'll come get you."

"What?" said Lance, "Tell me which part of that do you think is a good plan. Because I've seen all the Alien movies, even the sucky number three, and that is a horrible plan. No way, no how."

"So the galaxy's defenders are just a bunch of cowards without their lions?" said the Galra.

"Oh, and you'd head into that by yourself?" Lance countered.

"That was my plan before you tied me up," the Galra said with a familiar smug look. Yeah, it was totally what Galra-Keith would have done.

"Lance," said Pidge, "What if you took him with you."

"What? Tell me you're joking."

"He knows a lot about this P'Talaquos and the Apocrytean."

"But he's a Galra!"

"He's not wearing one of Zarkon's army uniforms."

"Oh, you think maybe he's a" Lance lowered his voice to a whisper, "Blade of Marmora?"

"You do know we Galra have excellent hearing, right?" asked their captive.

"Well then," Lance turned to him, "are you?"

The Galra gave a derisive snort, "I have nothing in common with Zarkon's followers nor a rebellion so focused on keeping themselves secret that they've accomplished nothing in 10,000 years."

"So, if you aren't with Zarkon or the Blade, who are you with? Is there another rebellion-" began Pidge.

"Every moment we spend talking, your chance of following P'Talaquos and saving your friend grows slimmer."

"Fine," said Lance and he reached over and unlocked the cuffs. "But no stabbing me in the back."

"I always slice people's necks so they can watch me watch them die."

"Great, so we're adding Predator to the movie-mix," muttered Lance as they started running to the shuttle, "Pidge, you better figure out a way to track us once we get out of that wormhole."

* * *

The Shpoidig was fast, and agile. Twice she'd duck down a side corridor, causing Keith to double back. Luckily, his Galra suit enhanced his senses and he'd been able to follow her by the sound of her footsteps.

He found her standing in front of a midsize cargo ship. He timed his approach to arrive behind her just after she'd unlocked the door so he could catch her from behind, knock her out and duck out of sight in case someone was coming out the open hatch. No one did, and Keith got a clean shot at Shpoidig.

Keith slipped on the now unconscious body to the floor, his hand straying over the golf ball like protrusion on her neck. It was cold, slightly soft, like a growth. Coran had called it a gall and remembering the look of horror on his face, Keith pulled his hand away.

The cargo bay was dark and there was a foul, rancid smell to the air. Keith missed his paladin suit with its air filters and lights. His Marmora blade emitted a faint blue glow he used to light his way.

Through the dim light, he caught sight of a figure, not moving. Keith approached it and saw it was an Unilu, its body held up against the wall by some sort of webbing. He appeared to be sleeping, but his neck was bent at an uncomfortable angle, presumably because of the basketball-sized gall from his neck.

Like every horror movie protagonist, Keith forced himself to lean in. The alien's eyes snapped open, and his pupils darted around in a frantic manner. Keith jumped back, his blade raised, but the Unilu's body, down to his facial features, remained still.

What was going on? It was the most freakish place he'd been in so far, and that list included a giant worm's digestive track.

Keith transformed his dagger into its extra-large sword form, partly for protection, partly for the light emanating from it. Slowly he turned, trying to make out other details. More of the strands of webbing hung along the walls of the docking bay and drooped from the ceiling. He made out another lump on the floor and approached it slowly.

This one was Datubuni and its tri-symmetrical arm stuck straight out. Otherwise he seemed to be sleeping. His chest rose and fell and his neck was gall-free. As Keith leaned over, he saw something moving in the shadows. It swayed back and forth, another alien.

His training took over. Finally, something he could fight. He crouched, ready to spring. And that's when he felt a prick on the back of his neck. A moment later, all his muscles relaxed and he fell to the ground. His eyesight blurred and the rancid smell became overwhelming. He caught sight of something white, almost a skeleton, reaching towards him. A voice cooed inside his head, "No need to struggle. You are mine now."


	4. Chapter 4 - A Meeting of Minds

In the Aftermath

 **Chapter 4 - A Meeting of Minds**

The cargo ship pulled away from its docking port at the Crimson 12 space station and hovered for a moment in a way that reminded Lance of a lazy bumble bee. Then, without the usual pause required for the port master to give authorization, it rocketed away, like a very focused bumble bee. It was moving so fast that it might have been a danger to nearby ships if a smoky gray circle hadn't appeared in the space in front of it.

Lance throttled his shuttle's engine as the front of the cargo ship disappeared into the portal.

"Faster, faster!" shouted the Galra sitting beside him, "The wormhole is starting to close!"

"I'm on it," said Lance, doing his best to sound utterly confident, "I am an ace pilot, after all."

It wasn't an exaggeration, at least when he was in the Blue Lion. But the shuttle didn't have the lion's speed, power, or agility. Even worse, its interfaces were a mess of popup displays and Lance didn't have Blue's steady presence guiding his eyes to just the right controls. He'd manage to turn on stealth mode, but darned if he knew where the secondary booster was.

"You should have let me drive," fumed the Galra.

"Be happy I didn't leave you tied up back in the station. Ten minutes ago, you were shooting at me," Lance reminded him.

"What's a minute?" asked the Galra.

"Stop distracting me!" Lance shouted, "I need to find the boost thruster button."

"You mean this?" and the Galra reached past Lance to flip a switch. There was a roar as the shuttle kicked forward. The sudden G's pressed Lance into his seat and the Galra into Lance as the shuttle dove into the wormhole an instant before it closed.

* * *

"Still no signal?" Allura asked for the third time. It had been less than an hour since the shuttle had disappeared into the wormhole and the castle hovered just beyond detection range of the Datubuni Ring. Green and Yellow were set to launch, but for now their Paladins were waiting on the bridge.

Pidge shook her head and went back to her popup displays. The largest screen was running her original Galra signal scanning program, in case their enemy was picking anything up. Another monitor analyzed the traffic patterns in the Datubini Ring during the last melsher. A third was flashing through know solar systems. Pidge had a tall popup open to the Altean glactotopedia entry on the Apocrytean invasion. She also had a mostly hidden screen playing cat videos. Pidge snuck looks at it when she was feeling low.

"What were you thinking, Coran?" asked Allura, also not for the first time. "Authorizing Lance to go off with a Galra, of all aliens?"

"It was an Apocrytean," Coran couldn't speak the name without a visible shudder, "What else could I do? You saw the galls on the prisoners in the brig."

Allura didn't stop pacing, "And Keith," she turned to Hunk, "you're sure he's on the mercenaries' cargo ship?"

"The station feed was corrupted, Princess," said Hunk, "but that unconscious Picasso-faced alien sure looks like Keith's handiwork. And we know for certain that he's no longer on Crimson 12."

"Princess," pleaded Coran, "what are we going to do about the Apocrytean? What if she's a queen, and those galls contain her offspring? Do you have any idea how many there could be?"

"Well," said Slav as if someone had asked him, which they hadn't, "There's a great deal of uncertainty about the precise rate of Apocrytean reproduction. However, using the most comprehensive study by the Hemulin historian Asatolia, a single gall hatches in roughly two weeks, which results in at least 20 offspring. Since on average one in 700 are reproducing females and time to sexual maturity is two months, if she were to infect even one alien per quintant, in a year there will be nearly 20,000, in two years almost 500,000, in three years 13 million, in four years, 350 million, and in five years 9 billion. Of course, I probably underestimated the one infection per quintant."

It was odd how composed Slav was in the face of actual danger. As he spoke, Coran sunk to his knees and put his head in his hands. Allura gave Slav a look that could freeze a fire and scorch an ice cube simultaneously.

"I'm just trying to be helpful," explained Slav.

"It isn't working," said Allura and strode across the bridge.

"She's right," said Hunk, "this isn't working."

"I'm doing the best I can, Hunk" snapped Pidge, but quietly as not to arouse Allura's ire. "My system-"

"Not that," said Hunk, "I mean, as a team. This isn't working."

He sighed trying to find the least confrontational way of saying what he was thinking, but gave up and let his words spill out.

"Coran should never have been leading the mission. He's knowledgeable and a great strategist, but he's not good under pressure, he barely managed to lead the space mall field trip. And without a strong leader we all fall into our worst habits. Keith runs straight into a suicidality dangerous situation, Lance takes off with some dubious alien, you bury yourself in your tech and I'm paralyzed with indecision."

"You're saying Allura should have been leading the mission?"

"Maybe," Hunk glanced at the princess, but she wasn't, thankfully, listening to their conversation. "But we need her to control the castle and she can't be in two places at once. We need someone on the ground, figuring out what to do when things go wrong."

"We don't have someone else, Hunk," observed Pidge, sounding more than a bit less defensive. "We only have each other."

"I know, I know," admitted Hunk, "I'm just saying we can't go on this way. If we don't find Shiro-" he stopped himself, "until we find Shiro, we need to make some changes."

888

It felt like they had been traveling in this wormhole for forever. Or maybe it was just the company. Lance glanced at the Galra who was still actively glowering.

Why were Galra so sensitive about their heights? All Lance had done was to casually comment on how much shorter he was than all of the Zarkon soldiers they'd faced and to ask if there was size requirements to join up. The guy had given Lance a full tooth snarl and hadn't said a word since.

The Blue Paladin weighed his options. On the one hand, his companion was rude, short tempered, and had at least two knives that Lance could see. On the other hand, Lance loved the sound of his own voice.

"So," he said, the latter winning out, "do you have a name?"

"Yes," said the Galra. Silence followed.

"What is it?"

"Mavalok," he said, still not looking at Lance.

"I'm Lance," he offered.

"I know that," said Mavalok.

"So, Mavalok," Lance tested out the sound of the name seeing, with satisfaction, the way the other tensed up, "who are you with? Some sort of rebellion?"

"In this universe, everyone who isn't with Zarkon is part of some rebellion."

Lance tried again, "So, what's in the sack?" It was a large and bulky backpack that the Galra had insisted on bringing it along.

Mavalok cut him off, "Look, I'm not trying to pry Voltron's secrets out of you, so why don't you extend me the same courtesy and keep your Earthling curiosity to yourself."

Lance mulled that over, but only for a few ticks. "You're pretty angry, even for a Galra. I mean, most of the Galra we meet are actively trying to kill us. But I've run into a few off the battle field, and they're much calmer." Mavalok said nothing, which made it their most enjoyable conversation to date. "Now Keith loses it sometimes, but in between, he's actually pretty low key. Of course, he's only part Galra, so maybe-"

"The Red Paladin is part Galra?" Mavalok's obvious interest gave Lance pause.

"I never said Keith was the Red Paladin," he replayed the earlier conversation, "and how did you know we came from Earth?"

Mavalok pointed to his bat ears. "Exceptional hearing coupled with a functioning brain. That Coran guy called your missing Keith the Red Paladin when he was talking to you and that Pidge guy, who, I'm guessing based on the fact that I'm not colorblind, is the Green Paladin. As for your planet of origin, you are some of the most wanted aliens in the universe. There's a price on your head and everything."

"Well," Lance reckoned he shouldn't be too surprised, "we did just take down Zarkon, after all."

"Then it's true?" Mavalok asked, "Zarkon is dead? There've been rumors based on fleet movements and radio silence. Everyone's been speculating if it was Voltron or a coup masterminded by the prince." For the first time, the guy looked excited.

Ooops, hadn't Allura said they were to lie low until they found Shiro? "Sounding a bit curious yourself, aren't you?"

Mavalok emitted something between a snort and a sigh, "Everyone wants to know about Voltron and the new Paladins."

Lance sensed Mavalok was willing to trade some information. Maybe not about himself or his organization, but something. "I might have a declassified story or two, but only if I get something equally interesting out of you."

Mavalok looked perturbed, but after a tick, said, "Like what?"

"Tell me about this P'Talaquos monster creature. And if these Apocrytean have been gone for more than 10,000 years, how does one just show up?"

Mavalok gave a single bob of his head as if to say it was a deal and then launched into a story.

"The rumor is that salvagers exploring a ship wreck found the frozen body of some unknown alien. They thawed the body to sample the genetic material and discovered the gall, which was about ready to hatch. Just one of the Apocrytean larva inside was viable. Maybe they knew what it was, maybe they didn't but they sold it to a traveling carnival. The carnies named her P'Talaquos and put her on display in a cage. She was a real hit, made them a bunch of money and everything was great. Until the performance where she broke out of her cage and murdered and ate, or infected every carnie and unlucky visitor in attendance. Infected aliens become her slaves. She commands them through some sort of mental signals, and can even take over their bodies directly. By now she's infected hundreds, possibly thousands, and commandeers a small battalion of ships. It's believed that she located the abandoned home nest of the Apocryteans and is incubating the next brood."

Mavalok took obvious glee in the telling. Probably hoping to terrify Lance, or at least make him sick to his stomach again. But Lance had watched a lot of horror sci-fi flicks, and something wasn't quite adding up.

"Has any of this brood been spotted? Or is it's still just this P'Talaquos?" he asked.

"No one's seen them, but-"

Lance cut in, his brain worked better when he spoke out loud. " 'Cause, if the Apocryteans are sort of hive insect aliens, then there should be more by now, right? There should be drones and hunters and gatherers and ones to tend the nurseries, or, umm, alien incubators. All following their queen's orders, right?"

"I'm not sure-"

"Because, how long has it been since she started disappearing folks?"

"Maybe a year."

"A whole year? Something's not adding up. Even if she only infected 100 aliens … I not going to do the math, but there should be an army of Apocryteans spreading out over the universe already."

"You're being naïve, Earthling." Mavalok snapped back, "your race has never faced the Apocryteans. You have no memories of the horrors they have wrought. If you had been raised on the terrifying tales, seen the images of the destroyed planets and aliens in the final stages of infection, you wouldn't question the seriousness of an Apocrytean resurrection."

"Okay," Lance agreed, "But consider this. Isn't it also possible that maybe you're overreacting because these guys were such bogeymen when you were a child?"

"What's a bogeyman?" asked Mavalok.

"It's the creepy monster that, when you're a kid, lives under your bed and keeps you from going to sleep because you're convinced that in the middle of the night he's going reach out and pull you under." Lance added some dramatic gestures which had the desired effect of making Mavalok shrink back into his chair.

"Galra don't have beds," he protested, "We sleep on floor mats." Now he was just trying to sound tough.

"Okay, in your closet then."

"But … but there is proof that P'Talaquos is infecting and enslaving aliens. People have gone missing and then shown up with Galls on their necks. Your Coran saw them."

"Has anyone removed a Gall and split it up to see if it's filled with wriggling Apocryteans?"

"We've tried," Mavalok said slowly, "once. We rescued two infected Unilus. P'Talaquos's influence weakens over distance and so these Unilus were largely free of her control, enough to ask us to try to remove the galls. But when our doctor tried to cut out the first, she found it was bound up in the Unilu's nerves and brain. There was no way to untangle it, so she took the risk of cutting the connection. It killed him."

"How?" asked Lance.

"Slowly and painfully. His companion changed her mind about the operation. But her gall continued to grow and even without P'Talaquos's influence, she lapsed into a coma after a week. We put her into a healing pod but it couldn't stop the gall from killing her. The autopsy revealed that the gall's connections had disrupted, and even replaced large portions of her brain."

"And the galls, what's inside?" The more he learned about the Apocryteans, the more Lance was beginning to appreciate the Galra empire. Even Shiro's arm wasn't this creepy.

"No Apocrytean larva, but they might not have developed because of the distance."

"Or," a sudden positive idea came to mind, "P'Talaquos doesn't have a mate, does she? That means she can't reproduce, right?"

"Parthenogenesis," said Mavalok as if that explained something, "some alien females can switch to clonal reproduction if a male isn't around."

"That's effective," agreed Lance, "I suppose we'll see when we arrive - If we ever get there. This wormhole is super slow. No wonder the rest of the universe abandoned this technology."

"Instantaneous wormholes need to be powered by pure Quintessence and only the Altaeans are able to channel that energy source."

"Our lions can do it too," said Lance, "I learned that recently." Bet Slav thought he wasn't paying attention. Lance hoped that wasn't classified info. He needed someone to draw him up a list of proscribed topics.

"Well?" Mavalok broke his thoughts.

"What?"

"You promised to tell me about Voltron and the Paladins. I kept my end of the bargain."

That was true. He'd better keep away from the assault on Zarkon and his fortress, but maybe some of the stuff that happened when they first became Paladins would be okay.

"Well, for starters," he began, "Pidge is a girl. Not that you're the first person to make that mistake."

* * *

At first Keith didn't realize he was conscious because his mind felt no connection to his body.

Everything was numb. Like he'd somehow managed to fall sleep as to cut off every bit of circulation, even his face felt heavy and bloated. He shifted position - that's when the pins and needles set in. From his fingers and toes, up his limbs, to his nose, lips and eyelids. He would have screamed but his lungs didn't seem to have air.

Keith pulled his body in, balled his hands, and squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to drive the painful tingling feeling away and reconnect with his physical self. It didn't work.

Something like a dream was awakening in his brain, pushing his sense of self farther away. Light and noise disappeared, and with them the memory of a world with colors and shapes and sounds. Words were unfolding in his brain, narrating a story that felt both like a memory and a real-time experience.

Once there was a small little-thing, went the words. In her head was an empty space. Somehow, she knew that there should be orders, work, duties in that space to guide her. But nothing came from inside. Instead, from the outside, there was a sharp-switch that burned where it touched. The sharp-switch told her to stop. Stop that movement, stop that hum making, stop consumption, stop resting. She soon became fluent in the sharp-switch language.

The little-thing's world was constrained. She could turn and lie down. But when she reached forward, when she tried to grasp up, the was a barrier. Where she brushed it with her body, it would tingle. And if she tried to hold it, her body would burn. It was good that she was small. She only reached out when the sharp-switch prodded her to do so.

Once a quintant, after the sharp-switch told her to stand back, a thing that smelled of weak and thin chemicals would be placed by her feet. This was sustenance to be consumed. She consumed, but she did not enjoy the consumption. That empty space in her head taunted her with an almost-memory of chemical smells from a different sustenance, a sustenance that she craved.

Beyond the barrier of her space, there were other things: chemicals that swirled, hums and vibrations that undulated, and something else. This something wore chemicals and made noises but was more than that. Somehow the little-thing knew these other things had filled spaces inside them. Inside each thing was a pulse. Sometimes, when the sharp-switch was away and her mind was quiet, she could separate the things and make out the pulses as they moved near and far, but never so close as to make contact with little-thing's barrier.

Over time she became aware of the pulse's differences and similarities. There were patterns to them. Unlike the barrier, which was to be avoided, or the sustenance, which was to be consumed, the pulses simply existed.

Some pulses were strange and new. Some pulses seemed to appear again and again. One pulse always arrived just before the sharp-switch. She learned that one well.

One quintant, there came a pulse that was wholly different from any pulse she had sensed in the past. The pulse came near, nearer than all other pulses, save the one that arrived before the sharp-switch. It passed through the barrier and placed a new chemical at the little thing's feet. It was a sustenance like none that she had ever consumed, but the empty part of her brain knew it and she consumed it quickly.

Later, it seemed like the pulses were sharper, their chemicals and sounds more tightly bound to them. Now she could easily separate them from each other. The sharp-switch also changed. It had a hum and from the hum's pitch, she knew where on her body the sharp-switch would strike. Just like she knew that the unique pulse with the strange sustenance would come again.

Again and again, the pulse passed through the barrier, leaving the sustenance. With each consumption the empty space in her brain filled until one quintant she awoke with new understanding.

The barrier was made of bars that formed a cage. While the bars burned, there were spaces in-between that did not. The sharp-switch was yielded by a pulse that moved the sharp-switch back and forth. One end of the sharp-switch, the part that connected with her skin, was painful. The other end, the part that connected to the pulse, was not. The sharp-switch couldn't pass the bars. Before the pulse could use the sharp-switch, it had to lower the bars of the cage.

The next time the pulse lowered the bars, but before it could use the sharp-switch, the little thing reached out and severed the connection between the sharp-switch's safe end and the pulse.

Oh, what a high-pitched hum the pulse made then. The little-thing could touch the outside shell of the pulse now. It wasn't hard like the bars. It was soft and bendable and so simple to snap apart. And after the snap, there was no pulse. All that was left was the chemical smell of sustenance. She consumed the sustenance. It didn't fill the space in her brain, but it was made of interesting and new chemicals.

With no barrier in front of her, she moved forward, out of the cage. Now she stretched tall and wide like she never could before. She was no longer a little-thing, she was big-thing, larger than any of the small pulses before her. They darted about, colliding with each other and making high-pitched hums. They were quick, but not so quick that she couldn't reach out and snap them. Sustenance fell around her, she would save the consumption for later.

She was looking for one particular pulse, the one that had entered her cage. She found it standing still, waiting. The large thing climbed over the sustenance and made her way towards the pulse.

The pulse made clicks and whistles that meant nothing to the big-thing. The pulse held out a long narrow object that hummed, but not as the bars or sharp-switch had hummed. Warily, the large thing took the object. And suddenly, all the empty spaces in her brain were filled. They told the big-thing what she must do.

A random pulse raced past her and she reached out to it with the object's sharp end. It poked into the pulse, but did not destroy it. Instead, it pulled back a bit of the pulse into the big-thing.

This bit was as delicate as a single strand of silk but through that connection flowed information. Colors and shapes and sound and vocabulary and ideas penetrated her mind, revealing the world she had lived in but never comprehended. P'Talaquos stood still marveling at it all.

P'Talaquos. It had been her name all along. Now she knew. Now she understood.

"You are a monster," said the pulse who P'Talaquos now recognized as a woman, "and the last of your kind. Your mother, and all the mothers who came before her, your father and all the fathers who came before him, they were all obliterated. Your siblings were struck down before they could crawl out of their hosts. Once your race, the Apocryteans, swarmed across the universe, devouring everything in their path. No one was safe. They lived in terror of your race, passing that fear down generations. They stuck you in a cage to parade about as a safe nightmare, so the masses could laugh and gloat and congratulate themselves for being on the winning side of an ancient war. Can you bring back your race? No, never. But with my help, you can bring back the terror. Would you like that, my monster?"

P'Talaquos heard these words and let out a sound. It was different than the pain sound she made when the sharp-switch hit, or the high whine when she begged for sustenance. This new sound meant yes.

"Yes," she said, using the mouth of the creature she had connected to, "I will be the monster. Show me my enemies and how to destroy them all."

Deep within P'Talaquos a new voice whispered, "No. Stop. This isn't who I am."

He reached deep into his memories. There was the desert at night with a million stars filling the sky. There was the sound of a woman's voice singing. There was the stale odor from his father's cigarettes and the fake flower smelling spray that Mandy tried to cover it up with. There was the movement of his arm, shoulder and leg together the first time he managed to throw Shiro to the ground in the dojo. There was the whoop of happiness he let himself make when he first navigated the Red Lion through the tight space of an asteroid field.

He was Keith Kagone, the Red Paladin. His body was his own again. He felt his fingers and hands and toes and legs and arms and face and lips. Felt the cold metal floor of the ship, the binding on his wrists and ankles and the stench of the aliens and rot. But while it felt marvelous, he knew P'Talaquos was experiencing it through him and he shuddered.

"So quick, so quick," came P'Talaquos's voice in his head, "usually Galra are slower. But you are only part Galra and part … Earthling. I've never processed an Earthling before. Nor a Paladin of Voltron, how delicious an experience this will be."

Keith opened his eyes, already knowing what he would see: an enormous nightmare insect that sent shudders down his spine.

P'Talaquos held the posture of a praying mantis, sporting the armor of a scorpion and the pointed head of a hornet. She had no eyes, just a mass of antennae or whiskers that ran along her face and neck. Her mouth was a hole with some sort of soft membrane cover that fluttered open and close.

Besides her four legs, she had three more appendages that sported crab like pinchers, not hands. In one was a staff with intricate carvings and a sharp point at the end. The part of his brain that was processing P'Talaquos's senses could see a thin bright line extend from the tip of that staff to his neck, just below his ear. Instinctively he shook his head, desperate to snap it.

"That never works," chuckled P'Talaquos's voice, "I've infected so many and no matter how far they run, what medicines they take, the connection remains. Through it I can do this."

Keith felt his neck jerk sideways, straining to stop it. "Strong," observed P'Talaquos, "the best are the ones that try to resist. Soon enough they submit. But look, we've arrived. Home."

Keith felt the ship exit wormhole space. He also felt P'Talaquos's attention shift, felt her consciousness thin. So, he thought, you can't control all of us at once.

"And clever too," the voice was fainter, but still authoritative. "I think you should sleep now." And he did.


	5. Chapter 5 - Resolve

**In the Aftermath**

 **Chapter 5 – Resolve**

"So, I get the starfish off and start swimming. But when I turn around I find myself looking at Cthulhu, um, this guy with an octopus head. And he says, wait is something happening?"

"Why did he say that?" asked Mavalok, spellbound.

"No, not the story, it's the wormhole," explained Lance, "I think it's changing."

"Huh?" asked Mavalok, snapping back into his role as a serious Galra.

"There." Lance pointed to the cargo ship they'd been following in stealth mode. The gray wormhole was shimmering in front of it. And then, the ship winked out of existence.

"Exit!" shouted Mavalok.

"On it." Lance responded. He gunned the engine and the shuttle responded with a sudden boost of speed. It hit the spot where P'Talaquos's ship had last been seen and the dismal gray they'd been flying in for the past hour went glittery. Space seemed to stretch and then, like the snapping of a rubber band, they were out into normal space.

The Galra's yellow eyes went wide and his mouth opened halfway between a gasp and a whoop. Of course, as soon as he caught Lance looking at him, his mouth snapped shut and he tried to affect a nonchalant attitude. Heaven forbid a Galra would admit to having fun.

On their monitors loomed a station. "Hey," said Lance, "that looks like a Galra base."

It was deep purple with a three-fold symmetry — built on a similar plan to Zarkon's base, albeit a bit smaller and simpler. Marring its clean lines were random, off-white protrusions that reminded Lance of mold or the mushrooms that grew on the sides of dead trees.

"It was a Galra base," said Mavalok, awe creeping into his voice. "In its day, it was the glowing achievement of our kind, made to be a hub of interstellar commerce and political discourse."

"Was this before or after Zarkon?"

"He was just Lord Zarkon then. His uncle, the Emperor, commissioned the station. But Zarkon was one of the primary forces behind it."

"Why did they build it out here?" Lance didn't see a planet for it to orbit, or any other sign of civilization, besides the collection of spaceships surrounding it. Most were strange designs he had never seen, but a few were recognizable and there was even one that reminded him of their castle.

"They didn't. The Apocryteans stole it using Seltevian tech. The station was built to orbit Nakobut, one of the major Galra colonies and Zarkon's home planet. Somehow, the Apocryteans replaced the station with a meteorite, and the meteorite crashed into Nakobut. Hundreds of thousands were killed in the impact and the resulting climate instability eventually made the planet uninhabitable. The Galra were already at war with the Apocryteans, but the attack on Nakobut unified the universe against the Apocrytean threat and lead to the creation of Voltron."

"Wow. But Coran said they weren't ever able to get to this base, how did they defeat them?" Lance didn't see any obvious damage.

"I don't know," admitted Mavalok," Zarkon removed most mentions of Voltron from our historical records. Maybe they threw a bomb or chemical weapon at it through a wormhole."

That sounded a bit non-Geneva to Lance, but Zarkon had been the Black Paladin. Whatever they did, it didn't seem to have done any significant harm to the station or ships.

He looked at the fortress. If a space station could be haunted, it would look like this. There were barely any lights, and had it not been for the Apocrytean modifications, it would have faded into the nearly starless space behind it. Not for the first time, he wished he was piloting the Blue Lion.

"We should land," said Mavalok.

Lance pointed to the berth P'Talaquos's ship was heading to. "Over there?"

"Too close," Mavalok said quickly. "There," he pointed to a spot that would require a good deal more walking. But Keith had run in, guns blazing, and look where that had got him. Lance steered their shuttle that way.

They found a particularly dark section of the station to pull alongside, and Lance turned his Bayard into a laser beam gun to cut a hole in the outer hull so they could enter. They soon found themselves in a massive hallway, three stories high and nearly as wide. Knowing that the station was meant to be a center of trade, Lance could imagine it arranged like a street, cozy with shops and businesses set up in little booths. But bare and empty, it was pretty much the opposite of cozy.

Their footsteps echoed as they walked. A thin layer of white dust covered the floor and more floated in the air, absorbing their search lights. Lance's thin beam ran along walls, looking for an exit. Instead it illuminated a mass of white… something… stuck to the wall. Lance's first though was a spider's egg nest, only a thousand times bigger. And there was a ragged quality to the silky thread.

Something was wrapped up inside it. He saw small bumps sticking out.

Five of them.

Fingers.

Lance's stomach rose up into his throat, but he couldn't look away. The flashlight penetrated the cocoon, illuminating anatomy. Entangled in the white thread, he could now see a forearm, then a torso, then a head.

"Dead alien, dead alien!" his voice squeaked as he jumped back.

It could have been a Galra, maybe, 10,000 years ago. Its skin was mummy-dry, pulled tight over its eye sockets and nose. And its mouth, filled with pointed teeth and enormous canines, was wide open as if the alien had died mid-scream, or maybe Lance was just projecting.

Mavalok was trying his best to look cool while he leaned in, but failing. He pointed to the corpse's neck, where something like a shiny goiter was still visible. "Gall," he explained.

Lance's light continued up the wall. There was another cocoon with two legs sticking out and another with what looked like a tail. And there were more, dotting the walls all the way up to the ceiling.

"It must have been a nursery," said Mavalok, "But not from P'Talaquos. They were infected before the Apocrytean defeat. Let's keep going."

Lance tried, but couldn't stop himself from counting. He'd reached 73 by the time they turned off to a smaller passageway. What killed them? Had there been a rupture that sucked out the atmosphere? But then why were they still stuck to the walls? "I'm beginning to understand why Coran was freaking out."

Just beyond the entryway was an even more unnerving sight. Another ancient corpse, or most of it. A chuck of its head and upper chest were gone. The gall had hatched and the larva must have been engaged in feasting when the sudden death had come. Their corpses, not much bigger than Allura's space mice, were like tiny praying mantises, but with more legs.

They moved on and came to a door. Mavalok pulled a small black box out of his backpack and clamped it to the access pad. A set of lights briefly blinked, then turned green, and the door opened. Mavalok retrieved the box and repeated the procedure on the other side to close the door.

"Can't you use your hand?" asked Lance.

"P'Talaquos, or one of her slaves, might notice the pattern of doors opening. This device masks our actions."

They continued like that through several more doors until they arrived at a well-lit section of the station. By this point, Lance could almost pretend that the corpses were just super creepy Halloween decorations. That's when they found one of P'Talaquos's recent additions.

The white wrappings were glistening and smooth like pulled taffy, and the trapped Datubuni's skin was still pinkish. As Lance watched, he saw the alien's chest rise and fall.

"He's alive," said Lance before Mavalok slapped a hand over his mouth.

At the same time, the Datubuni's head snapped sideways. Its eyes were open and fixed on them. Faster than he could think, Lance had his Bayard in stun gun mode and fired. The alien froze and then its head fell forward. Mavalok yanked him down the hallway and around a corner. This space held only the ancient mummified victims, and as such it was almost comforting.

"It might not have alerted her," said Mavalok, "our source says that she can't be in everyone's mind at once, but she can instill a command which they're compelled to follow."

"Like watch the doors for intruders?" said Lance.

"Or kill anyone who enters." replied Mavalok, always a glass-half-empty guy.

"Can't we do anything to help the victims?" asked Lance.

"We can kill P'Talaquos," said Mavalok.

"And that will free them?" Lance asked hopefully.

Mavalok shrugged, "That's not our objective right now. You're here for your friend."

"I never said Keith was my friend," Lance corrected him, "I usually call him my rival. Back at the Garrison, he was this annoying, stuck-up, hot-shot pilot and I wanted to wipe that smug, disinterested look off his face. But since we've become Paladins, I've come to realize he's just awkward around people. And his I'm-too-cool standoffishness is because he really doesn't know how to react." Lance knew he was babbling, but it was keeping his mind off what he just saw, so that was good. "I kind of thought that was just the Galra side of him, but you're pretty high social-functioning, so that knocks that theory out."

Mavalok's glare finally shut him up. "Do all humans talk as much as you?" he hissed, "Don't answer that, just keep moving, have your gun ready, and be quiet." Anger was definitely a Galra trait.

Lance followed Mavalok silently. P'Talaquos's sentries were spaced randomly, making Lance's heart pound as they rounded each corner, opened each door. Twice more he had to stun the ones that woke up. The second sentry managed to get partway out of its webbing. After that, Lance was sure he could hear faint footsteps nearby.

Beyond the fear factor, each victim added to Lance's growing sense of guilt. Why had he been so sure that once they beat Zarkon he'd be able to go home? P'Talaquos had been gaining power all this time, and who knew what other evil things were out there. No matter what happened to the Galra empire, the universe needed its legendary defender.

And it needed the Paladins. Mavalok and the Blade of Marmora might fight the Apocryteans, but they were unconcerned with the specific victims. After I get Keith out of here, he promised himself, we're coming back for all of you.

His sensor said they were getting close to Keith but he didn't dare try to raise him over their com link. "Almost there," whispered Lance when they reached the next junction, "This way," he pointed left.

"Not for me," said Mavalok, who had pulled his own sensor out of his backpack, "what I came for is to the right."

"Wait, what about –"

"You didn't seriously think that I came all this way to help you rescue the Red Paladin, did you?"

"Well, it would have been the nice thing to do. I kind of thought I was starting to grow on you." He gave the Galra his most winning smile.

Mavalok gave a snort, "I'm Galra, remember? The bloodthirsty race that's enslaved the galaxy? We don't do 'nice'," and then, in a less arrogant voice, he added, "What we had was a brief alignment of goals, they're diverging now."

"Fine," said Lance, trying to sound offhanded, "not like we needed any more Galra allies. The princess probably wouldn't appreciate me taking home a stray anyway."

"I'm not a stray," said Mavalok, "Besides, you're one of the Paladins, you'll do fine."

"Yeah, that's true."

Mavalok was giving him a measured look and said nothing. Just before it started to get uncomfortable, he reached in the knapsack and pulled something out. "Here." He handed Lance a necklace with a square flat pendant.

"What's this?" What he initially assumed to be a decorative pattern looked on closer inspection to be complex circuitry.

"Think of it as a protection charm. It disrupts P'Talaquos's mental control by blocking her signals. That's probably why we haven't triggered any alerts. But it's not super powerful, otherwise those victims wouldn't have woken up. I'm thinking that if the Red Paladin is infected, it might come in handy."

"Thanks," said Lance turning it over and watching the wires shimmer, "you should have told me you had this thing sooner. The walk here would have been a lot less nerve racking."

Mavalok shrugged, "and give you an excuse to talk more?"

He was probably right. As Mavalok turned, Lance said, "Good luck with your mission."

Mavalok paused, but didn't turn around. "Same to you." Then he ran off.

Well, Galra weren't known for their manners, Lance supposed. Still it was nice of him to share. Lance slid the charm into his pocket and started in the direction of Keith's location.

* * *

Mavalok walked more carefully now, stepping quietly and slowly by the various bodies. Without the charm, a single misstep could alert P'Talaquos to his presence.

Still, it was probably safer this way. Lance was decent enough at stunning the sentries, but once P'Talaquos was alerted, the game would be up. Initially Mavalok had been counting on this distraction for his own mission. But after listening to Lance's tales, even accounting for embellishments, Mavalok had to admit that defenders of the universe had fairly won that title.

Strategically it made sense support the Paladins. If they took out P'Talaquos and her army, then it wouldn't matter that Mavalok had given away the Apocrytean blocker prototype. Emaksolam would understand, he often said that to defeat Zarkon's Galra empire they would require outside assistance.

Besides, Mavalok was almost to the goal. He entered the final airlock and looked out to the prize. There it was, huge and white with hardly any Apocrytean detritus. The Altean battleship Kyanite, untouched for 10,000 years. Now he just needed to get it running.

He pulled up the schematics and headed towards the engine room. As expected, the scaultrite

were badly damaged. Taking eight newly minted plates from his bag, he carefully mounted them. The Balmera crystal was in good shape, lucky considering how difficult it would have been to acquire one, much less drag here.

Next came the bridge and the trickiest part of the mission. As he'd told Lance, only Alteans could draw upon the universal Quintessence to open wormholes. What he hadn't brought up in conversation was just how good the Galra empire under Zarkon had gotten at acquiring Quintessence. He pulled out a canister of the glowing liquid along with several cables and set to work hooking it up to the main control panel.

Mavalok was so intent on his work that he didn't hear the shuffling, didn't notice the salty-ripe smell, didn't sense the shadow that fell across the room. It was only a movement in his peripheral vision that caused him to glance up and narrowly avoid the dagger that was already flying at this throat.

The Galra jumped back. His hand reached for his blaster, and came up with nothing. He saw it across the room, behind the advancing Unilu armed with two daggers and a sword. There was an alertness to her eyes that told Mavalok that this wasn't some autonomous sentry, this one was under P'Talaquos's direct control. And she was out for Mavalok.

The Unilu charged.

No way could Mavalok block that sword with his ordinary knives - a Blade of Marmora dagger would have been useful about now. He remembered his training: when fighting an Unilu take out as many arms as quickly as possible.

Mavalok grabbed a cable and, using it as a whip, caught up the sword and the Unilu's free hand and then yanked. The extra pull added to the Unilu's momentum and she toppled forward. Before she could stand up, Mavalok leaped forward and managed to land on the free hand. There was a satisfying crunching sound.

But apparently P'Talaquos's mental link didn't convey pain. Instead of screaming and thrashing, the Unilu swung at Mavalok with her remaining dagger. Mavalok countered with his own knife, but the force knocked him down.

The Unilu loomed over him. Her breath was rank, her skin sweaty and a sickly shade of green, but worst of all was the glistening, pulsing gall on her neck. Horror mixed with nausea in Mavalok as the Unilu came closer and closer, daggers bearing down.

He had one last defense, but he had to time it right and avoid the gall. With the Unilu's daggers a mere breath away from his face, Mavalok's legs shot up and wrapped around the Unilu's neck and arm. He latched his left knee over his right foot and squeezed. The Unilu went bright green and her eyes fluttered briefly before her body went limp. Mavalok kept his hold a moment longer to make sure the Unilu was truly unconscious.

Mavalok rolled out from underneath the sleeping alien and grabbed the nearest cable. He had the Unilu's feet and all four hands tied up before she started to stir. He used actual rope to secure her into a chair and some cloth to bind her mouth.

The ship's sensors were coming online, telling him there was a massing of aliens outside the Kyanite's hanger. The hatches were holding but it looked like Mavalok had been Lance's distraction.

His prisoner was awake and ineptly struggling. P'Talaquos glared at him through the Unilu's eyes. Mavalok gave her a very rude Galra hand gesture and went back to rigging up the Quintessence feed.

* * *

Lance ran as fast as he could down the corridor. The sooner he found Keith, the sooner he'd never have to see this place outside of his nightmares. His sensors led him down the passage to a huge hangar containing the cargo ship they'd been chasing. The regular opening of hangar airlocks was probably why this space was devoid of webbed wrapped bodies.

He glanced around and saw a body in black armor bound to a pillar.

"Keith," he called out before remembering he was supposed to be stealthy. He ran towards his teammate and was relieved to see Keith raise his head.

"You look bad," said Lance as he approached. And not in the beat-up way that was typical for Keith post-mission. His skin was grey, his eyes bloodshot, his mullet plastered down on his forehead. And on his neck, a small white bump no bigger than a marble poked out.

Keith's arms and legs were bound with simple rope and Lance easily freed him. The Red Paladin fell forward into Lance's arms, but as he did, his hands shot up and wrapped around Lance's neck.

"Gglgp," went Lance as his trachea closed. His knee shot up, catching Keith full in the chest and sending him backwards. But just as quickly, Keith rolled and sprang back to his feet.

"You're under P'Talaquos's mind control, aren't you?" cried Lance.

"What do you think?" said Keith.

Keith was almost on him. Instinctively Lance reached for his Bayard and, as it transformed, swung it at Keith's head. His teammate fell hard to the ground, and this time stayed put.

"I, I can't stop what my body is doing," gasped Keith.

"Her power weakens with distance," said Lance, "I just need to get you out of here and back to the castle.

"Then you're going to have to hit me a lot harder," said Keith as he struggled to stand.

Under normal circumstances Lance would be glad for the challenge. He looked around and spotted what looked like a toolbox, but before he could get it open, Keith lunged at him, knocking Lance's Bayard out of his hands. They went down grappling. In a sign that Keith was fighting P'Talaquos's control, Lance managed to evade Keith's grasps.

Lance flailed, searching for something to fight back with. His hands fell on something cool and metallic, tingling with a slight vibration. Keith's arm came forward in a punch and Lance blocked it, the object in his hand slapped against Keith's chest. It was Mavalok's protection charm. Keith's body went rigid. The thing must be working, Lance thought as he looped the charm over Keith's neck and slipped out from underneath, going to the tool box and picking out a wrench just in case.

"I can think again," said Keith, "what is this?"

"It's some sort of Apocrytean protection charm, I got it from a Galra."

"A Galra?"

"Yeah, we kind of ran into him back on the Datubuni station. He turned out not to be completely evil, still, not the greatest personality, but he was kind of helpful. Told me a bunch about the Apocryteans and gave me this charm that probably saved both our lives."

"Where is he?"

"Beats me, apparently he had his own mission so he took off."

"I might have met the guy," said Keith. The color was returning to his skin. "I think this is blocking the mind control signals from P'Talaquos's staff."

"Staff, what does she need a staff for?" asked Lance.

"I…" Keith put his hand up to touch the gall. It was kind of freaky. "Her mind link doesn't go in just one direction. Earlier, I caught some of her memories, more like nightmares. She's not a queen and these aren't fertilized eggs, galls, whatever. She needs her staff to link to them, to control us through them."

"I knew it!" said Lance, "I told Mavalok that things weren't adding up for an Apocrytean second coming."

Keith had that distant look in his eyes again. "Something's coming, you hear that?" There was a flurry of scampering, shuffling, thudding sounds.

"This way," Keith whispered and they ran across the hangar to a large inset panel on one wall. Keith put his hand to the plate and a door opened. After pulling Lance in, he shut it behind him, tapping out some sequence on the pad.

"I've locked the system," he said, "they shouldn't be able to open it for a bit."

"Um, Keith," Lance glanced around, "You know this is an airlock, right? And you've just cut off our only non-space exit?"

"Yes," said Keith, his moody terseness returned. Good to have him back.

"Oh, I get it," said Lance, "you're going to call the Red Lion to come rescue us."

"I can't, this thing is still latched into my brain. I can't focus enough to…" Keith closed his eyes and shuddered, "no, you're going to be the one to call."

"Wait. What? Call Blue?" asked Lance, "but I'm not part-Galra like you."

Keith gave a tired sigh, although Lance was willing to chalk that up to the mind control thing.

"It's not about my genetic makeup. It's about having a connection with your lion. You've bonded with Blue, right?"

"Of course," said Lance indignantly, "may I remind you that Blue and I have the longest relationship."

"Then focus and call her."

Lance took a deep breath, closed his eyes and thought about his lion. He tried to focus like a meditating monk might: clear his mind, block everything out. Mavalok's face popped up in his consciousness and he wondered what the runt was up to. No. Blue, he was focusing on Blue, on their connection, reaching out to … Images of Allura, then Coran, then Hunk, then Pidge hijacked his thoughts. After a moment, he opened his eyes. Keith was looking expectantly.

"Nope, nada." Lance doubted a hothead like Keith meditated his way to connect anyway, "How did you do it the first time?"

"The first time," Keith spoke slowly, "that was when the shuttle exploded and Allura and I were lost in space. We were drifting, and the com link was just giving me static, and I remember thinking that we were as good as dead. I felt myself starting to panic and this thing that Shiro says, "Patience yields focus," it popped into my head. And hearing his voice calmed me. I knew, somehow, that he'd come and get us. And while I was thinking about Shiro, suddenly I felt Red's presence, like when I'm piloting her, and I knew she was on her way."

"Well that's not much help," said Lance, "Shiro's missing, and even if he weren't, I'm not carrying around a hero worship complex like you."

"It's not hero worship," said Keith defensively, "I've known Shiro since I was 12. He's the closest I have to family."

"You're an orphan?" If he said anything about being raised by wolves, Lance was winning his bet with Hunk.

"No," Keith said in that curt way he used to end conversations. He grimaced and Lance tightened his grip on the wrench just in case. Then Keith spoke, "my mom left when I was really young and my father had a temper, and drinking problem. He beat me up when I was 13. That's when child protection services stepped in. They placed me in a group home and my extended family kind of forgot about me. Through it all, Shiro was there. Calling me on the phone, taking me places on weekends, making sure I kept up with my martial arts. I doubt I'd have made it into the Garrison without him. That's how I know I can count on him, no matter what."

"That invasion of the body snatcher alien is making you quite loquacious," said Lance. Hearing about Keith's troubled past made him feel a mix of guilt and jealousy.

"Anyway, it should be easy for you," said Keith, "you've got that big loving family. Just think of one of them and reach out."

It seemed reasonable, except…

"Okay, so, no one loves his parents and sisters and grandmother more than yours truly. But, the truth is, they're kind of goofs. I mean, they're smart and talented and impressive, but they could never get their act together to plan a birthday party or sign me up for after-school sports. They always put something together, but at the last possible minute. The school secretary had their numbers on speed dial, she had to call them so often whenever someone forgot to pick me up in elementary school. I guess there were so many of them that no one person had to be the responsible one."

"You got picked up from school?" asked Keith.

"Wait, I know," the choice was obvious, "Snufkin!"

"Who?"

"My dog, Snufkin. They got her when I was two. She was supposed to be a family dog, but really, she was mine. Never left my side when I was home, always waiting for me by the door when I was away. She slept on my bed, ate the food I didn't want, came the moment I whistled for her," thinking about her still made him tear up. "She was the greatest dog ever. You think if I whistled like I did for Snufkin, Blue would come?"

"Maybe," Keith shrugged, "It's worth a try."

A thought occurred to Lance, "I don't have to be launched into space or anything life threatening, do I?"

Keith glanced toward the hangar door. There was a distinct scratching sound from behind it. "You're trapped in a space fortress with an alien that can take over your mind. Her minions are trying to get in. And I don't know how much longer this charm's going to block her."

"Way to put things into perspective."

Lance took a few more steps away from Keith. He thought of the times he'd wake up from a nightmare and Snufkin would lick his face until he giggled and the bad dreams would melt away. He puckered up and blew.

* * *

Why did her Paladins keep doing this to her? Running off on their own into dangerous territory! And not even with their lions to protect them. What part of them thought they were invincible? There was a real war and the universe needed Voltron. Needed them to be responsible.

But no, give them an honor bound combat test or a chance to disarm an entire Galra fortress and off they'd go, happily risking their lives.

They thought themselves expendable. She had no idea where they got such an idea. Like she could just hop down to the Paladin store and replace them.

Didn't they understand how important they were to their teammates, to Coran? to her?

A part of her heart just dropped, went empty and cold, at the thought of losing him.

And Lance.

Of losing any of her Paladins. Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Shiro.

And Keith.

"Pidge-" she started to say when Hunk spoke up.

"Um, I've got a Lion that really wants to leave her hangar."

Allura gave thanks to every Altean deity she could remember.

"Let the Red Lion out. We'll follow her in the castle. Pidge and Hunk, I want you ready in your lions. We'll give Red the protection she needs when we reach P'Talaquos's base."

"Um, Princess," said Hunk tentatively, "it's the Blue Lion that's activated."

Allura kept her face composed so she'd give no sign of the dread in her heart.


	6. Chapter 6 - Moving Forward

**Chapter 6 - Moving Forward**

"And then suddenly, Blue's in my mind. Weren't you girl?" said Lance patting the side of the Blue Lion's control console, "oh yes you were! But," his attention turned back to Keith who stood behind him, "it wasn't like, boom, and she appeared. It was like she'd always been there. I can't explain it." Not for lack of trying, Lance admitted to himself, he was babbling. But, whistling for Blue, having his Lion blast out through a wormhole, and tearing out a section of space station wall to rescue them, how cool was that?

Besides, Keith was back to his usual silence, determined not to share in Lance's ecstatic state. There was just so much to be happy about. No longer being in that Apocrytean house of horrors, for starters. And here was the castle and the other Lions emerging from a wormhole. How great was that?

"Lance!" Allura was hailing him, "Lance, are you alright?" He could hear the concern in her voice, loud and clear.

"I'm good, Princess, your heart can rest easy."

He didn't expect his words would have her singing for joy, but a relived sigh would have been nice. Instead, her next transmission was tighter, downright anxious. "Keith… is he?"

Lance could chalk up Allura's hesitation to her still unresolved feelings regarding Keith's Galra ancestry. Or, she could be- Nope, those unresolved feelings were based on professional concern and friendship, nothing to see here folks.

"Keith's here." Lance said, "he's good too. He's got a small gall on his neck but –"

"WHAT?" cried Allura.

"I'm alright, Princess," Keith assured her, "the Blue Lion's blocking P'Talaquos's mind control."

"He's infected!" wailed Coran in the background.

"No," said Lance, "Listen, P'Talaquos's galls don't contain baby Apocryteans," a hideous image of a partially consumed corpse with newly hatched bug aliens flashed through Lance's mind. He pushed it, along with any Keith-Allura speculation, back down the memory hole, "She just uses the galls for mind control. And it doesn't work over long distances, so we don't have to worry about Keith murdering us in our sleep."

"You must bring him back at once," commanded Allura, "We'll prepare a healing pod."

"That's going to have to wait, Princess," said Keith, "We've got to stop P'Talaquos before she can do more damage. It's going to take all four lions."

"No more of these rash decisions!" cried Allura. Her tone made both Lance and Keith jump, "I need my Paladins healthy and I need them safe. You will return to the castle. Now."

"Sorry for interrupting," said Coran, "but, a large number of armed spacecraft are approaching the Blue Lion. They may be preparing to fire."

"Lance, dodge!" shouted Keith. Quick as lighting, ace-pilot Lance obliged as blasts of light filled the sky. It was so good to be back in Blue.

"Correction, they are firing," said Coran, "but you appear to have figured that out."

"Green and Yellow Paladins," said Allura, "take those ships down and clear a path for the Blue Lion." The requested Lions swooped past Blue, bearing down on their attackers.

"No, wait," said Lance, "the crews of those ships innocent. They're only attacking because P'Talaquos's mind is controlling them."

"Lance is right," said Keith. That was a statement he was going to commit to memory, "We can't harm the pilots."

"I can't let them harm you either," insisted Allura. Lance assumed she was using the plural form of you.

"P'Talaquos has enslaved a huge number of aliens," said Keith, "if we don't stop her now, she'll only capture more. Our best chance of freeing everyone, including myself, is to take her down now."

"But-" said Allura

"Princess," said Keith quietly, "Do you trust me?"

There was a pause. "Yes," said Allura. As a commander would trust a skilled and dedicated pilot, Lance interpreted her response.

"Then you need to let us do this," said Keith, "Hunk, Pidge, disable the ships, but try not to hurt the occupants. Lance will get me to my Lion. P'Talaquos will join the battle and I think I'll be able to sense which ship is hers. We'll need to destroy that ship completely. Killing P'Talaquos and wrecking her staff should free everyone."

"Sounds good to me," responded Hunk.

"Got it," said Pidge, "glad you're alright, Keith."

"We'll see you soon," said Keith.

Lance gunned his Lion. He was totally ready to take down P'Talaquos. In the heat of battle, Keith had good instincts. And he'd handle the Allura confrontation almost as well as Shiro would have.

Shiro.

P'Talaquos had claimed she had Zarkon's champion. Mavalok had said it was all a trick to lure some Galra soldiers. When they'd been sneaking through the fortress, it had been a comfort to believe that that Shiro wasn't infected and strung up as a sentry. But if he was? Or what if he was on the ship that they were planning on destroying?

Lance glanced at Keith, whose gall, now the size of a marble, was prominent on his neck.

"Hey Keith," Lance began, "you said when P'Talaquos was rummaging through your mind, you got a peek into hers. Was there any truth to her claim that she had Shiro?"

"No," Keith snorted. "She had a plan to take over some Garla soldiers and to use them to infiltrate Zarkon's troops. It was just our bad luck that she chose 'Zarkon's Champion', she didn't even know he was the Black Paladin."

"I guess it would have been a Slav level probability to have found him in the first place we looked," agreed Lance.

"Yeah," said Keith, "we'll just have to check them all out."

Keith had a tired, determined look. Lance could see he was pinching his lips to maintain that normal meh Keith look. Lance's father had a similar expression when he studied the medical records of a patient who was relapsing.

"We can totally do it, too," said Lance trying not to sound like a naïve cheerleader, "we're Paladins. We've got Pidge's tech, Hunk's engineering, yours and mine awesome piloting skills, plus four nearly-unstoppable Lions. We'll find Shiro and, along the way, stop the bad guys. It won't be like Kerobos. This time Shiro knows we're coming for him."

Keith didn't respond at first, but he seemed to be thinking hard. And then, there was a twitch to his mouth that could almost, if you squint hard, be taken as a smile.

"You're right, Lance," said Keith said at last. Two compliments from Keith and calling his Lion across the cosmos, it would have been one of Lance's best days ever, if not for having to live out a horror space movie earlier. "We won't let him down." Keith took a deep breath and with more certainty said, "Lance, could you drop me off at the main hangar?"

"But the Red Lion was moved back to-"

"I know. There's something I need to get."

* * *

Standing in front of any Lion, it was hard not to feel small and insignificant. That was even more true for the Black Lion. She was a head taller than Red and twice as wide. If Red was a puma, as Keith often thought of her, then Black was full on tiger.

He'd seen a living tiger once at a traveling circus. Keith had been eight, maybe nine at the time, and, with no money for a ticket, he'd snuck onto the back lot. The tiger, mangy and probably not well fed, had been caged and obviously not a threat to him.

All the same, his body turned to stone the moment she looked into his eyes. She didn't roar, didn't show her teeth. She was utterly calm. The wild animals he'd encountered in the desert, even the predators, always showed apprehension as they tried to figure out where they stood against a human. The tiger had no doubt. If it weren't for the bars, Keith would be dead already.

It had been the same when he faced off against Zarkon on the hull of his fortress. That time, Keith and the Red Lion had the clear tactical advantage. They were armed to the teeth while Zarkon had only a Bayard. But, with that same calm certitude, he had bested both Keith and Red.

Black had been Zarkon's Lion first.

Now she was Shiro's.

Keith had faced off with Shiro, too; they must have spared over a hundred times. Keith had insisted that Shiro not go easy on him, and consequently had spent a good deal of time eating floor. Like Zarkon, Shiro was confident and calculating. Those abilities could be used to play mind games with your opponent, but Shiro never pulled that card. He'd fought honestly, without cruelty or viciousness.

Keith looked to the Black Lion's eyes, trying to detect something akin to Shiro's wisdom, patience, or gentle humor. The Lion was still, waiting.

"Slav says you sent Shiro away to protect him," Keith tried to not make it sound like an accusation. "We're trying our best to find him. But without you, we can't form Voltron or defend the universe. You know that, right?"

He hadn't expected an answer. Even through his close connection to the Red Lion, the most he'd get was a feeling or emotion. Keith kept going. He'd told Lance he trusted Shiro. Now it was time to prove it.

"You let me pilot you once, to save Shiro. It's kind of like that now." It sounded lame. You didn't get to pilot the Black Lion by begging.

"You could make everything simple if you just flew off and got him," he offered hopefully.

The Lion didn't so much as twitch, but in his mind, Keith felt a wave of emotion so strong, he was forced to take a step back. It was irritation and frustration all mixed up but it wasn't directed at him. Keith knew that inward-focused helpless feeling all too well.

"I'm not a natural leader, like Shiro. And I'm not powerful the way Zarkon was." That was probably a good thing, "but I'm a great pilot and a skilled fighter and I don't give up. I won't give up. If you accept me as your Paladin, I promise I'll find Shiro for you.

The Lion's intensity subsided and something warmer touched his mind. His feet felt vibrations from the floor. It was coming from Black, a sub-vocal rumble that seemed like laughter, as if she was amused that he'd taken this long to approach her.

* * *

Mavalok kept a look of stoic boredom on his face as the Kyanite completed the final diagnosis. He had a strong belief, reinforced by reality several times over, that getting your hopes up guaranteed someone or something would dash them to smithereens. So he'd spent the last hour, while the ship rebooted and checked its systems, preparing for the Quintessence system to fail and resigning himself to spending the next two months in warp drive in order to get the ship home.

"System checks completed. All functions online and accessible," reported the ship.

"What is the status of the wormhole drive?" Mavalok asked in a flat voice.

"Wormhole drive is functional and accessible."

At this, Mavalok took a deep breath and whooped for joy. P'Talaquos's mind-controlled Unilu glared at him with hate filled eyes. She said nothing, because, in addition to restraining her three times over, Mavalok had gagged her.

"Thanks for keeping this ship in such great shape, Apocrytean," Mavalok figured a bit of gloating was in order. "We've got big plans for it. Big plans, I say."

The intensity in her eyes lessened, as if the Unilu was zoning out, or P'Talaquos's attention was elsewhere. After pulling up the outside monitors, Mavalok and had a pretty good idea of why. There were three Voltron Lions attacking the armada.

"Huh, I kind of thought they'd be better fighters," said Mavalok after watching them for a moment. Their aim was off – Pidge's Green Lion and Lance's Blue Lion kept missing the critical target points. And the guy, Lunk was it? was maneuvering the Yellow Lion so badly, he was crashing into ships.

"Unless …" Mavalok smiled. They were purposely damaging the ships as to not hurt the pilots. The Yellow Lion's collisions were taking out wings and engines and avoiding the cockpits. The Green Lion's plant bombs were tangling, not crushing ships. And the Blue Lion was darting and ducking in such a way as to herd the enemy into his teammates' range.

"I guess he might be an ace pilot after all," not that Mavalok would ever tell that to Lance's face.

The Paladins were also providing the perfect diversion. Careful not to draw attention to himself or his ship, Mavalok disengaged from the Apocrytean base and gently fired the engines. The last thing he wanted was to be mistaken for one of P'Talaquos's minions.

Something started beeping from a console near the front of the bridge. Before Mavalok could scamper over to it, a large monitor popped up with visuals. A ship was approaching the Kyanite, fast.

"Computer, zoom in and enhance image."

The display showed an Unilu pirate ship, a Ravenger, first class. It was an ugly beast, bloated with armor and massively over-weaponized. The Kyanite could easily outmaneuver it in a dogfight or leave it eating stardust in a race. But in this case, with the Ravenger bearing down at close range, the Kyanite was at a serious disadvantage.

Mavalok jumped over to the navigation console and reversed the engines. The Ravenger opened fire. Stupid interface. Where were those Altean barrier shields? Stupid, stupid interface.

At that point, all the popup screens stared displaying blinking warning lights, because, of course, everything was getting hit. Lovely. His mission had just been to retrieve the Kyanite, not take it into battle.

Maybe he could escape by executing a jump now? He turned to the jury-rigged Quintessence engine only to see a warning light saying it was losing juice. "What? You're not even turned on?" he asked, "How is that even possible?"

His console was detecting another ship. On the monitor, the Black Lion rose up, facing P'Talaquos's warship and giving Mavalok a clear view as the metal wings on its back unfurled. More than metal, they were glowing, becoming pure light. And that's when the Quintessence started visibly draining. A least the Lion's shields were blocking the Kyanite.

"Well, are you going to stand there looking cool and sucking up my fuel?" shouted Mavalok. If he'd known the Paladin's frequency, he would have told him off directly.

Maybe Shiro had heard him. The Lion gave a magnificent roar. Was that possible in the vacuum of space? Either way, it accelerated towards the Ravenger.

Was it going to ram it? Slice it in two? Blast a hole in it? Despite a cacophony of blaring warning sirens, Mavalok couldn't look away.

Zarkon might have banned all mention of Voltron and the Lions, but the Great Aunties would still tell stories late at night. Even as a child, Mavalok knew these legends were embellished. Just like he knew Lance had been exaggerating his role in his stories. In both situations, Mavalok hung on every word.

The Black Lion was fast approaching the Ravenger, but other than those wings, no other weapons were materializing. He really was going to ram it. Mavalok gripped the sides of the console and didn't dare to breathe. And then-

"Wait. What?"

The Lion was on the other side of the Ravenger, and they were both in one piece.

As Mavalok's mind tried to process what his eyes had seen, there was a "thonk" and something nudged his foot. He glanced down to see an opaque white ball. Had it fallen off a piece of equipment? Mavalok traced its trajectory to the bound Unilu. She hadn't moved, but there was a pretty nasty wound on her neck where the gall had formerly –

"Eww!" squeaked Mavalok and instinctively kicked the object by his foot as hard as he could across the room.

Too much was going on that made no sense. It was enough to make one's head explode. Fortunately for Mavalok, the Galra brain had evolved to function within the heat of battle. When things got overly complicated, it seized on the most manageable and straightforward solution and followed it. This predilection was why there was a dearth of Galra philosophy, but a lot more surviving Galra.

Mavalok activated the wormhole generator, and turned the engines to 11. The Kyanite charged forward. The Quintessence was seriously drained and he had idea if it was enough, or what would happen if it ran out mid-jump. Guess he was going to find out.

* * *

Coran joined the Princess and the Paladins in the Black Lion's hanger. The battle had come to an abrupt halt with two battleships escaping through wormholes and the remaining ships surrendering. There were numerous but non-life threatening distress calls.

Coran had assigned Slav to field the calls and left before Slav had time to protest. Coran's presence in the hangar was more important, for him at least.

The Lion's mouth hatch opened and out stepped its pilot. He removed his red helmet and, as always, Coran's immediate thought was that the lad needed a proper haircut. Keith held out what looked like a collection of black rods and metal bits.

"P'Talaquos's staff," he said by way of explanation, "When I got close to her ship, I could sense it. The Black Lion did this thing – I don't know what exactly – but I could see it, reach out for it, and take it from her. Then I sort of smashed it."

"And the Gall?" asked Allura. There was a steeliness to her eyes that reminded Coran of the expression her mother, Falla, had when the old Paladins were on the battlefield.

Keith reached into his pocket and dug out a small white orb. The hairs on Coran's mustache stood up. His eyes went to the small cut on Keith's neck and a sudden wave of nausea forced him to look away. Fortunately for his reputation as an erudite and world-weary spacefarer, no one else noticed.

Also unnoticed by the Paladins as they gathered around Keith, were the quick movements of Allura's fingers. It was an ancient Altean gesture giving thanks for prayers answered. The relief that flooded Allura's face was deep, but brief.

"Is P'Tallaquos dead?" Allura asked in an unnaturally formal voice. Did she think that deliberate lack of emotions was fooling anyone?

"I'm not sure, Princess. But without the staff she's on her own and a much smaller threat," replied Keith as if this was a straightforward technical report. Obviously one fool was oblivious. "Our top priority is rescuing her prisoners. Lance says there's a bunch of aliens trapped in the space station, but we'll want to get the ones in the stranded ships first." He turned his attention to the other Paladins, "You guys did a great job disabling the ships. Nice flying."

"You too," said Hunk, "piloting the Black Lion and all. So… is this going to be a thing?"

Keith's confidence faltered, "With Shiro gone…" he began.

"Yes," Allura cut in, "it was Shiro's request that should something happen to him, that Keith pilot the Black Lion and lead the team." She met the Red, err Black Paladin's eyes and he gave her a small nod. Allura then turned to each Paladin and Coran, as if giving them a chance to voice an objection.

"Works for me," said Pidge.

"Yeah, well, it makes sense," said Hunk.

"I'm sure I can wrangle up a spare uniform," said Coran.

They all turned to Lance. "So," he said, "If Keith's going to be the responsible team leader, that means the spot of hot-shot ace-pilot's available, amiright?" He did that thing with his smile and eyebrows that, from previous context, meant that the other Earthlings were going to be annoyed with him.

"Does that mean you're volunteering to pilot the Red Lion?" asked Pidge.

"No!" shouted Keith and Lance simultaneously while Coran could swear he heard two disgruntled Lions roar their disapproval.

"Blue and me just reached a whole new level of bonding!" said Lance, "You saw how I called out to her from across the Galaxy. It was like suddenly, Blue was in my mind. But it wasn't like boom, there she-"

"For the nth time, yes, Lance, very impressive," said a weary Pidge.

"But, umm, someone's got to pilot the Red Lion. Otherwise we can't form Voltron, which is pretty critical to defending the universe, right?"

Hunk's question hung in the air, waiting. Someone needed to step up to the challenge, to bravely volunteer for this critical and dangerous position. Coran had been preparing for this moment since Alfor had recruited him and he braced himself to respond. Probably should have braced a little faster because Allura spoke first.

"I thought I might try filling in for Keith," she said.

"But, Princess," Coran sputtered, "It's your connection with the castle and the Quintessence that enables our wormhole jumps."

"We've already seen that the castle can function for short periods without me at the helm." She countered. "This is, after all, temporary until we can locate Shiro."

"Didn't you say that the Red Lion had the most temperamental personality?" asked Pidge, "are you sure she'll let you pilot her?"

"She has in the past," said Allura.

Earthlings had the cutest mouth expressions. Yawns were Coran's favorite, especially when they would pass from one to another. But seeing all four Paladins' mouths drop open simultaneously just now was a close second.

"Of course, it was under close supervision," explained Allura, "But I was the one at the controls. The one sitting in the pilot's seat."

"More like sitting in the Red Paladin's lap," scoffed Coran.

"He wouldn't let me drive any other way," Allura gave a gentle laugh, and Coran joined in at the image.

They were the only ones laughing. The Paladins' expressions had passed from surprise to genuine discomfort.

"So, the Red Paladin…" Hunk began.

"…was my father, King Alfor," Allura completed the sentence, "I think I was five at the time."

"Oh, well then."

"I get it."

"That makes sense."

Hunk, Pidge, and Lance relaxed. Keith just had a relieved look on his face. Allura turned to Coran to see if he understood these Earthlings any better than he did. He simply shrugged.

From his vantage point, Coran looked at this new team configuration. Superficially, these new Paladins aligned with the originals, but over the past months, Coran had learned to appreciate the differences.

Pidge was every bit as brilliant and resourceful as R'cthkiki, but the delight she showed with each new discovery had been absent in the old Green Paladin. Lance exhibited Deogan's charm and flexibility without his cynicism or distrust. And where Lithelia had considered her empathy and nurturing tendency a limitation, Hunk embraced them. These traits made them stronger, individually and together.

He wondered what Allura's deep resolve and conviction would bring to the team.

And Keith, that was the true unknown. The Black Lion had accepted him, as she had Shiro. But Shiro had the confidence of a born leader. And Keith? He was arguably courageous, some might, and did, say reckless. And yet, his actions had saved them and their mission several times over.

When Zarkon's betrayal had been revealed, Coran and the Paladins had begged Alfor to assume command. Something inside him had broken and he refused.

Keith had stepped up to the challenge. And defeated an Apocrytean, at that. It didn't remove all of Coran's concerns, but it wouldn't keep him up at night. Now the Apocrytean, that was good for at least a month of nightmares.

* * *

 _Epilogue_

Ogeneish Ropelmerger Borsch Logyegrater glanced at his chro-commute app. If his shift replacement showed up now, it would take two vargas and eight dobashes to get home. Five dobashes ago, when his coworker was supposed to show up, Ogeneish would have been home in less than two vargas. He hit the predict button for three dobashes from now: two vargas and 14 dobashes. The Datubuni gave his most put upon sigh, which no one was around to appreciate.

It had been a very, very long shift. Some mistreatment calling themselves GLP-Roxs had hacked the Ring Positioning System and Ogeneish had to give directions to the same 18 lost tourists all day long. Plus an unauthorized departure by an Unilu cargo ship resulted in his lunch break being spent filling out paperwork. And there was that bar fight that broke out on Crimson 12 and spilled out to a quarter of the space station. But no one was saying there were any Galra soldiers involved, so Ogeneish wasn't making it his problem.

Chro-comute was reporting two vargas 21 dobashes. Where was his replacement? Probably stuck in traffic.

A monitor started beeping and Ogeneish pulled up an image of a huge white ship emerging from a blue circle. Ogeneish had a well-developed sense of aesthetics and if he'd seen that ship in the annual Spacecourse D'Exquisite, he would have appreciated its timeless build, its streamlined symmetry and oh-so deliciously retro illumination scheme. But he was looking at two dobashes and 83 vargas flight home and –

WTQ? How'd it get to be so long? Was there an accident? Great, there was a weblum blocking the main space route. This was just –

"Hey! Hey you!" The white ship was hailing him. Ogeneish clicked on the visual and saw a purple-furred, white-eyed Galra baring his teeth at him, "Can I get some service here?"

"Sorry," of course this day would be bookended by Galra, "what can I help you with?"

"I need some repair work done. I need you to contact a hull servicing system, weapon specialists, an engineer-"

"Um, excuse me," said Ogeneish, "but I'm a space flight controller-"

"And I'm an officer in the Screaming Loraxes battalion, ever heard of us?"

Every alien has a breaking point. And Ogeneish's commute had just passed three vargas which probably accounted for what he said next.

"I've had a very bad day." And he glared at the Galra, "A very, very, very bad day." He hadn't known he could sound so tough.

That gave the Galra a pause.

"Well," he said at last, "I've had a very good day. Two bouts of combat, one of them hand to hand to hand to hand with an Unilu who I pummeled quite soundly. And I stole this ship, drove her through a space battle," his grin was more unpleasant than his snarl, "know what would really make it really gold star?"

"Um, no," said Ogeneish in a not-so-tough voice.

"Trying out the plasma cannon, I've been reading about it in the operating manual. Lots of targets around here. Or," he gave a little shrug, "you could help me fix my ship."

Today, Ogeneish decided, was not his breaking point day. "Let me see what I can do to help." He pulled up a directory service and started looking up contractors. Three vargas, 6 dobashes - not like he was going anywhere fast.

* * *

 _Well, that's the end of my first multi-chapter Voltron fanfic - at least one that I've written down, as a kid I used to come with all sorts of stories for the original TV series. It's a bit darker than the current TV show but (hopefully) still a fun read. Let me know what you think._

 _There are a few loose ends, like what happened to P'Talaquos, and who Mavalok is working for, and then there's the big stuff, like will Allura be able to pilot the Red Lion, and will they be able to form Voltron. I'll be addressing those in my next story "Learning Curve" plus introducing some new (old) cannon characters._

 _I'm also planning on adding a notes section to this story eventually._


End file.
